The Idea That Minorities of Influence Seek Revenge Against Whites Is Fiction

Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson says that political conservatives make claims of reverse discrimination to advance the idea that people of color in influential positions are out to get whites. He wrote in a 2010 column on the issue: “A cynical right-wing propaganda machine is peddling the poisonous fiction that when African Americans or other minorities reach positions of power, they seek some kind of revenge against whites.” Robinson asserts that not only isn’t this idea false but also that prominent conservatives are playing it up to win over white voters.

He doubts that most conservatives actually believe that vengeful decision makers of color are using their influence to hurt whites.

“Most of them…are merely seeking political gain by inviting white voters to question the motives and good faith of the nation’s first African American president. This is really about tearing Barack Obama down,” Robinson said. “These allegations of anti-white racism are being deliberately hyped and exaggerated because they are designed to make whites fearful. It won’t work with most people, of course, but it works with some—enough, perhaps, to help erode Obama’s political standing and damage his party’s prospects at the polls.

Reverse Racism Denies Minorities Experiences With Discrimination

Bill Maher, comedian and HBO’s “Real Time” host, takes issue with reverse racism because it ignores the people of color continue to experience oppression today. Maher particularly objects to conservative Republicans making more of an issue of so-called reverse racism than they do of racism against minorities.

In 2011, he remarked, “In today’s GOP there is only one correct answer to the discussion about racism. And that is: There is no racism in America anymore. Except reverse-racism against whites.”

Moreover, Maher points out that Republicans have offered up no solutions to combat reverse racism. He suggests that this is the case because reverse racism isn’t real. Instead, reverse racism functions to deny the racism that people of color in U.S. society have long endured. He explained, “Denying racism is the new racism. To not acknowledge those statistics, to think of that as a ‘black problem’ and not an American problem. To believe, as a majority of FOX viewers do, that reverse-racism is a bigger problem than racism, that’s racist.”