What Ferguson Tells Us About Reverse Racism
The murder of Mike Brown, a young Black teenager from Ferguson, Missouri not only reflects the degree of vulnerability by which Black men face, but a larger portrayal of the current police state in which many Black and Latino communities are locked in around the country. Although some may disagree, many Americans around the country may claim Ferguson police officers are simply experiencing reverse racism. However, what Ferguson has brutally laid across our television screens is that reverse racism cannot exist.
Racism is more than just negative beliefs about a group of people; racism essentially dictates the social edifice our country runs by. Prejudice and discrimination are unlike, as anyone can maintain beliefs or commit actions based on the color of a persons skin regardless of their social class or capital. “Racism is an ideology of explicit or implicit superiority or advantage of one racial group over another,” Eduardo Bonilla-Silva writes, “plus the institutional power to implement that ideology in social operations.” The structure is inherently powered by the inequalities it reproduces, and without these inequalities racism becomes dismantled. Like other isms, whether on a micro or macro level, it is the macro interpretation of racism which defines our society and daily experiences that occur.
For reverse racism to exist, this in theory would mean people of color collectively hold more power than white people, enough to discriminate against them on a vast scale. Yet in Ferguson, where the population is 67% Black and 29% white, the police force is almost entirely white. The cause is institutional racism, a framework of white supremacy which has dominated our country from its’ existence. This does not just end with police but migrates to the Mayor’s office, the school boards, and the council members that do not represent the Black population of Ferguson. Mike Brown and Ferguson are not anomalies, but recurring themes in both white and Black communities alike.
While each year, America becomes increasingly racially and ethnically diverse, white people continue to remain in and advance to positions of power. This is possible because reverse racism does not exist. I write this asking people to recognize the power of their words. If we (and I mean we, as in white people) continue claiming “reverse racism,” we are only adding gasoline to the fire in Ferguson.
Eve Stern
Originally Written August 17th 2014
