In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling in Ricci v. DeStafano and its implications (if any) for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, the term “reverse racism” has exploded in American socio-political discourse. To my chagrin, a sense of entitled victimology has descended upon adversaries of affirmative-action who unapologetically misconstrue the meanings of racism and justice. Moreover, they are misunderstanding and redefining the American legacy of racial injustice.

For me, Nancy Fraser’s “Justice Interruptus” immediately comes to mind as a viable reference point. In her work, Fraser uses “equity” as something distinctly separate from “equality” as a means for addressing the dilemmas of recognition and redistribution, both of which are highly nuanced remedies for righting wrongs of injustice.

As I understand it, the meaning of reverse racism derives from the perception that racial minorities receive preferential treatment at the expense of the dominant white populace.

This expense is not interpreted as a means for redressing inherent societal disadvantages; rather, it is interpreted as discrimination against whites. The problem with this interpretation is that it has no factual basis in the meaning of racism or in the historical administration of race-based injustice.

Racism is about power — even more, it is about structural and institutional power. It is about a uniquely engineered identity-based framework that establishes  the dichotomy of “whiteness” and “non-whiteness” as standards of being. While historically, the definition of race has been fluid (in the spirit that the “Irish were black”), race has been used to justify European imperialism as well as measure the nature of one’s own existence.

The mere fact that racial minorities are required to recognize themselves and each other in racial-grouping terms (as opposed to anything else) in order to participate in American society in the first place, is in itself an indication of pre-existing structures of racism. It is explicit evidence of the existing structural power and behavior of racism.

But lets be clear, nowhere in this mess of misrecognition do racial minorities get the power to define themselves, let alone the institutional or structural power to administer any systemic discrimination or systematic prejudice. Any power perceived to be present within the communities of racial minorities is comes long after racial-group designations have been made, formed and subsequently imposed by the dominant white populace.

Absent in this structural and institutional continuum of racial domination is there a method akin to “reversal” as the term “reverse racism” would suggest. Try to point to one American-based systemic example of how racial minorities force their white counterparts to operate in their pre-defined terms of race-based recognition as a condition of their citizenship, and you’d come up painfully short.

Some would argue that power as it relates to racism is both everywhere and nowhere, that it is not only found in institutions and structures but also in decisions about where to live, whom to marry, whom to befriend, and where to worship. And to all those making such arguments, I would remind them of Jim Crow and slave codes, some of the most vivid examples of institutional and structural power which flowed unilaterally from the dominant white populace to racial minorities, and then explicitly spilled into other forms of power.

From this massive and systemically egregious denial of access to rights and resources, the concept of white privilege emerges, and so(rightfully) do the notions of reparations and affirmative-action.

What examples of structural and institutional power akin to those that I’ve just described here can one point to that would lend credence to the notion of reverse racism?

I would argue that before one can apply such a thing as reverse racism to Judge Sotomayor’s initial ruling in the Ricci v. DeStafano case, one must first recognize that her position as a federal judge was made possible through the approval and scrutiny of a majority white Senate under rules composed by a dominant white congressional apparatus. Her access and eligibility for such a position was only realized until enough of those within the dominant apparatus willingly agreed that the exclusion of racial minorities needed to be unlawful (and not a moment before).

For every person of color that occupies a position of national power and/or authority, I can point to a panel of white persons whose consent (be it directly or indirectly) were required in advance.

I do not say all of this to negate or dismiss the progress we have made as a country toward racial equality, but the issue here is about equity, which requires much more than just “equal treatment.”

In my view, suggesting that society no longer needs mechanisms of equity (like affirmative-action) is like suggesting that society no longer needs laws protecting one’s right to vote, or one’s right to worship, or one’s right to marry (and we still haven’t gotten that one right). It undermines democracy and stifles the possibility of justice.

If you ask me, reverse racism should mean exactly what it looks like, an action which reverses racism—completely out of existence.

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