In their opposition to programs of affirmative action aimed at correcting inequalities brought about by racist/ethnicist discriminatory practices, racists/ethnicists (for example, in Canada, India, South Africa, and United States) have concocted the mythical concept of “reverse discrimination” or “reverse racism.” In the United States, the concept of “reverse discrimination” it will be recalled, first entered the U.S. legal lexicon with the court case of a EuroAmerican, by the name of Allan Bakke, who argued that his rights to further education had been violated as a result of preferential admission of blacks in public education (that is, affirmative action), and where the Supreme Court in 1978 concurred with him on the basis of an interpretation of the same Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. constitution that the Court had used in 1954 in striking down the “separate but equal” doctrine in education in the famous case of Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka.

Yet, as Cruse (1987: 31) points out, the court and those who brought the case neglected to consider that “Allan Bakke had not, prior to his filing of suit for “due process,” experienced a lifetime under the onus of ethnic, racial caste, r class oppression, nor had his ancestors. He was as near to the racial ideal of “Nordic” perfection as any white racist could dream.”[1] That decision in favor of Bakke, Cruse further observes, once again raised the rhetorical question of whether or not the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 was intended to protect the citizenship rights of blacks. (Notice also the profound irony in all this: EuroAmericans themselves have always been beneficiaries of affirmative action, for centuries!)

The racism embedded in the concept of “reverse discrimination” is also pointed up by the outrageous suggestion that a minority of the population (in the United States), historically discriminated against to the point where today they continue to remain at the bottom of the economic and political ladder, are unjustly threatening the interests of a majority that historically enjoyed and continue to enjoy a monopoly of political and economic power. Such thinking is, to say the least, one of the most ludicrous arguments ever advanced to continue to justify white political and economic supremacy (See Grabiner 1980; for more on the concept of “reverse discrimination” see also Gordon et al. 1978). Moreover, this false concept hides behind it the stark fact that the wealth the Europeans enjoy today has come about as a consequence of the economic activities of generations before them. (Even in the most ideal conditions of steady uninterrupted economic growth—not yet recorded anywhere in human history—it takes nearly an entire human life-span for the Gross National Product to simply quadruple.) Therefore, the wealth that the whites in the U.S. enjoy today came about as a result of unpaid labor of enslaved Africans and underpayment of free U.S. African Americans—not to mention the dispossession of Native Americans.[2] If the Africans brought over to the U.S. had been given the same privileges as their white counterparts to terrorize, brutalize and murder Native Americans by the hundreds of thousands in order to steal and despoil their land, then one can talk about “reverse discrimination” today. But, then, what about the rights of Native Americans? [3]

It follows, on the basis of the foregoing, that measures (such as affirmative action programs in the U.S.) aimed at correcting the present-day consequences of past racially determined inequities cannot be labeled “reverse racism.” Yet, despite the fallacy of reverse racism (or “reverse discrimination”), it has now become a much bandied about concept among conservatives in the U.S. to attack whatever progress that has been made in weakening institutionalized racism in the 1960s and 1970s following the struggles of the civil rights movement. Clearly, in a racist country, such as the U.S., the concept of “reverse discrimination” is a false concept; it is another racist gimmick dressed up in legal language to deny victims of centuries of racist discrimination access to what is rightfully theirs.[4]

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NOTES

[1] The truth is that throughout history and up to the present day, Euro-Americans in the U.S. have always had the benefit of “affirmative action” arising out of their skin color. Today, when two equally qualified individuals, but one white and one black, present themselves for employment at the factory gate, the chances are that the white will be hired first—if that is not affirmative action then what is it? In fact, the problem is more insidious than that: resumes with black-sounding names are less likely to be read than ones with whitesounding names by employers (see Bertrand and Mullainathan [2004]).

[2] Mention should also be made of the fact that if Africans had not been forcibly brought over to the Americas and instead left alone in Africa to follow their own historical destiny, without any interference from colonialists and imperialists, today they would probably be as advanced (at the minimum) as Japan—the only country in the PQD to have escaped imperialist depredation.

[3] Perhaps it is time to consider ways of compensating both Native Americans and U.S. African Americans for what the Europeans stole from them. (See Browne [1972] for a compelling argument on this matter.)

[4] One more point worth noting: since racism is a function ultimately of power (and not the mythical superiority of the racist) it follows that: (i) at the societal level, the racial antagonism of victims against racists provoked by racism cannot be classified as racist behavior given the inability of the victims to negatively affect the life-chances of the racists with this “rebound” antagonism; and (ii) all human beings are potential victims of racism—including racists themselves—when racism is allowed to flourish against any group; all it takes is for the balance of power to shift. To take an example: in South Africa it will not be long before the European racists who had subjected blacks to centuries of brutal racist oppression will begin complaining about “black racism”—though it will quite likely be imagined than real (unless South Africa follows the retrogressive path taken by its neighbor, Zimbabwe) given the continuing EuroSouth African monopoly over economic power. Incidentally, the consequence of reversal of power relations for victimizers is well explored in the motion picture Planet of the Apes (1968).