Confronting Reverse Racism

When an evil is only selectively condemned, the inconsistent forfeit the legitimacy of their claims to moral superiority.  Their hypocrisy reveals that they do not care about doing the right thing because it is good and obligatory; they do the right thing if or when it benefits them in some way, whether it grants them social acceptance, appeases their consciences, or simplifies their lives in some other manner.  While there are many moral issues that people treat inconsistently, there is one that is closer than others to the surface of general conversations in America: racism.

Racism against various minority ethnicities is at last condemned outright as an atrocity, but sometimes this is accompanied by reverse racism, or racism redirected towards "majority" ethnicities.  This is often a response to past evils committed by previous generations, which only amplifies the injustice, since treating a person as if he or she is responsible for the actions of someone else is inherently unjust.  Those guilty of reverse racism betray the very moral ideas they claim to be upholding.

In order to show the hypocrisy of reverse racism, consider a scenario from 1800s America.  Suppose that a white master abuses his slaves, thinking them of lesser value simply because of the color of their skin.  The master commits an egregious sin.  However, so do any of his slaves who loathe him simply for the color of his skin and not for his abusive behaviors, since they are then guilty of an identical moral offense.  They have become like their master in this regard, sharing this moral fault.  Racism does not become legitimate when it is reciprocated towards a racist person (and the same is true of sexism).

Some do not want to admit this, since it contradicts their own respective forms of racism that they seek to portray as legitimate, upright, and justified.  Racism can be nothing other than what it is, irrespective of the prejudices of those who only endorse it selectively.  When fighting an evil, one must avoid responding with another evil, no matter how comparatively small it is (of course, there are rare situations where one cannot avoid sinning, and thus must choose the lesser evil [1]).  If one commits the same evil one is attempting to defeat, the lack of consistency shows a lack of concern for morality itself.  At that point, one is only opposing another evil because of annoyance, not moral fortitude.

The racism of one person or group does not and cannot justify reverse racism.  It only requires a minimal grasp of morality and deductive reasoning to understand this.  The unfortunate truth is that many people do not have either.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/02/the-morality-of-vows.html