A look at racism and prejudice
There is debate about whether black Americans can be racist, specifically against white people. The answer is yes, they can.
Where does the idea that black Americans can’t be racist come from?
It seems to me that people say that blacks and other non-white Americans can’t be racist because they define racism as needing power and prejudice together. People are trying to define racism as solely being institutional racism.
Here is a definition which exemplifies that idea by Doyin Richards in Opinion | Can Black People Be Racist?
“Racism is completely different from prejudice, because it’s systemic, as the -ism suffix connotes. I’d define racism as a political, economic or social system in which a dominant race uses its power to oppress others of different races.”
The article makes valid points about some experiences many black Americans have to face that many white Americans won’t ever experience. However, I think trying to shift the definition of racism to only mean systemic or institutional racism is largely unhelpful in the contexts in which it probably comes up.
I am sure that many black people have faced the situation of trying to explain a situation to a white person, one which they were sure was caused by racism, and had the other person dismiss it because they didn’t think it was “real racism” because the guy wasn’t wearing a white hood or something to that effect.
Likewise, there are white people who have likely had their experiences trivialized in this manner simply because they are white. If a white person is the target of a hate crime or otherwise racist actions, one should not tell them that it wasn’t “real racism” because non-whites can’t be racist. Or that it isn’t an issue because other groups experience racism more often.
Can black Americans be racist against white people?
Going by either of these definitions:
Yes, anyone, regardless of nationality, gender or skin color can be racist. I will focus on the first definition for the rest of this answer.
Since violence based on racial bias is a simple way to tell if there was antagonism directed toward someone because of racial bias, I will examine hate crimes committed by black offenders.
A hate crime is defined by the FBI as:[1]
“A hate crime is a traditional offense like murder, arson, or vandalism with an added element of bias … a criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity.”
In the FBI’s 2017 hate crime statistics, the agency reported that 1,359 offenders were Black/African American as seen in Table 9. This amounts to blacks being the offenders of 21.3 percent of 6,370 hate crimes which were reported to be based on racial bias. [2]
I was unable to locate any specific breakdowns of how many anti-white hate crimes were committed by black offenders using this data. However, looking at Table 1, the FBI reports that out of 5,060 victims of single-bias hate crimes motivated by race/ethnicity/ancestry, “17.1 percent were victims of anti-White bias.” [3]
Assuming that any hate crimes committed by blacks were because of anti-white bias, they would be just as racist as crimes committed against non-white people by white offenders.
For some specific incidents of black offenders in anti-white hate crimes, I’ll have to look to news reports.
In a 2019 example, a black woman was reported to commit multiple hate crimes, in which she sprayed pepper spray at white people, in some instances after saying she hates white people. NYC woman charged with hate crimes after series of pepper spray attacks
In May, there was an incident reported of a black man beating white man unconscious and then throwing him onto train tracks, with his reason being that the victim was white. Sharpsburg man charged with racially motivated attack at Downtown T station
In 2017, a man shot three people in an effort to kill as many white people as possible. He also had anti-white posts on social media, such as posting about “white devils”. Suspect in custody after 3 people shot dead, Fresno police say
These crimes committed because of anti-white bias are comparable to anti-black crimes. Just because these crimes were committed by black offenders does not make them any less racist.
There are also various Black Nationalist groups throughout the United States.
Two of these groups are The Nation of Islam and the New Black Panther Party.
The Southern Law Poverty Center states this about the NOI:
“Its theology of innate black superiority over whites and the deeply racist, antisemitic and anti-LGBT rhetoric of its leaders have earned the NOI a prominent position in the ranks of organized hate.”
Regarding the NBPP, the SPLC website says:
“The New Black Panther Party is a virulently racist and antisemitic organization whose leaders have encouraged violence against whites, Jews and law enforcement officers.”
Here are some things members of the NBPP have said:
“I hate white people. All of them. Every last iota of a cracker, I hate it. We didn’t come out here to play today. There’s too much serious business going on in the black community to be out here sliding through South Street with white, dirty, cracker whore bitches on our arms, and we call ourselves black men. … What the hell is wrong with you black man? You at a doomsday with a white girl on your damn arm. We keep begging white people for freedom! No wonder we not free! Your enemy cannot make you free, fool! You want freedom? You going to have to kill some crackers! You going to have to kill some of their babies!”
— King Samir Shabazz, former head of the party’s Philadelphia chapter, in a National Geographic documentary, January 2009.
“The white man is the devil. Let’s get right down to business. In 2018, any negro coon lips and dares say all white people aren’t bad should be sent to a psychiatric hospital and diagnosed with slavery syndrome or you should do the inevitable to yourself.”
— Samir Shabazz
“There are no good crackers, and if you find one, kill him before he changes.”
— Khalid Abdul Muhammad
Groups like this are extremists and their ideologies are toxic. In saying that, I agree with another quote from the SPLC:
“The racism of a group like the Nation of Islam may be the predictable reaction to white supremacy. But if a white group espoused similar beliefs regarding African Americans and Jews and, few would have trouble describing it as racist and anti-Semitic. If we seek to expose white hate groups, we cannot be in the business of explaining away the black ones.”
I think it is absolutely important to be aware of and combat hate and extremist groups in all their forms. That means it is important in the U.S. to recognize that white supremacy groups are not the only hate groups.
Now, I will discuss prejudice and bias by black Americans against white Americans. This is much more difficult to find solid information for because prejudice without reported action is much more difficult to find concrete data for.
According to a poll, 20 percent of blacks think that all or most white people are prejudiced against blacks.[4]
I think is an interesting result. To me, saying that all or most white people (this poll doesn’t even seem to have specified just white Americans) are prejudiced is itself a biased or prejudiced belief.
Ultimately, black Americans are just people. They are able to be biased, prejudiced and racist toward any other group of people. In America, blacks are not the ones benefiting from systemic racism, but blacks, along with any other non-white racial group, are just as able to be individually racist as any white person.
Footnotes
[1] Hate Crimes | Federal Bureau of Investigation
[4] How Americans see the state of race relations
Originally published at http://quora.com.
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