Disclaimer: Names have been altered due to protect identities
I was at Portillo's with a couple of friends. One of my friends, Jenn, starts going off on how she completely despises her ex-boyfriend, who happens to be white. As soon she mentions his race, another one of my friends, Andrea, interjects Jenn's rant with one statement that hasn't left my mind since: "I don't mean to sound racist, but I just really hate white people."
Why? Why was that necessary to say? Even worse, Jenn was completely okay with Andrea saying that. In fact, she defended her outright offensive statement by saying, "Actually, you can't be racist towards white people. You can be prejudiced or discriminatory, but not racist. So it's okay to say."
Oh okay, so it's okay for me to say "I just really hate black people, no offense!" right? The arguments that people of color can't be racist and white people can't experience racism are flawed since power dynamics are dependent on the situation. I understand that in the United States white people have been offered benefits before minorities for countless centuries; however, power can still shift based on individual situations.
For instance, in early January, a mentally disabled white man was kidnapped and tortured on film by four African Americans. Ont top of this, they shouted "F--- white people" and "F--- Trump", cut him with a knife, and duct taped his mouth. Not only were the acts reprehensible enough, but the way certain news channels executed their takes on this hate crime appalled me. Symone Sanders from CNN essentially defended these kidnappers; she turned this circumstance into a "black people are oppressed in the U.S. so we should understand why these kidnappers are angry" discussion, even though in my person opinion, this was an overanalysis. There is no justification for torture, especially when these acts were being captured on facebook live while the mentally handicapped man remained completely vulnerable and traumatized.
My main question is: since when did it become trendy to hate white people all of a sudden? If it's socially acceptable for person A to say "all white people are school shooters", why is it offensive if person B say "all black people are thugs and criminals?" Both statements are offensive, depending on whether these statements are jokes or not. We are acting as if all white people are incredibly bigoted and that all of their ancestors owned slaves. Buzzfeed keeps creating content titled "Food White People Ruined" or "If Asians Acted like White People". If the roles were reversed, these articles and videos would be reported and taken down without hesitation.
And no, I'm not saying reverse racism is real. It's just racism, and it can affect any person of any color.
