I don't necessarily disagree with defining racism as racial prejudice + power (which plays out as racial discrimination) but very people have no power at all (the only people who have absolutely no social power are those who are completely paralyzed and incapable of interacting with the external world and even they have
some power over themselves, they have a choice in how they deal with their situation). Power is what you can do (or alternatively the influence you have over other people and things). Even most slaves had the physical power to harm some innocent white people and thus to discriminate against them even if they lacked the same legal rights as whites and their racism would be punished.
If a person is white in America, society automatically gives them more power than blacks.
What does that mean, specifically? 'Society' is comprised of individuals so you're really arguing that if a person is white in the U.S,
other people give them more power than they give to black people. Do you mean politicians and the citizens who vote them into office, teachers, police officers, sanitation workers, nurses, celebrities, who? What power do white civilians have that black police officers, black judges and black politicians don't have? What can they do that black civilians can't? The idea of white and male privilege (which definitely exists, in some circumstances, I just don't believe that whites and males are systematically privileged or that people of color and women never are) is so vague and 'abstract' to me, it doesn't refer to any specific concrete thing. The Zebra killings in the 1970s carried out by the Death Angels (if I remember correctly) is an example of anti-white racism carried out by black people. If a radical group of white civilians randomly killed people of color walking around in public it would be an indisputable act of racism. If black people do the
exact same thing, it's not a legitimate example of racism because they, as black men, lacked the power to be racist ; not to kill people but to be 'racist'. This only works with a concept of 'racism' that is just so detached from the actual conrete world involving specific situations and circumstances and not just completely abstract ideas espoused by 'liberal' academics. Even if it wasn't 'racism', why would racism be any worse? Either way, people were killed because of their race (or assumed ethnicity, some of the victims were actually Middle Eastern, if I remember right).
The problem is white people try to call Black people racist as if Black people's racism = white people's racism
That's obviously bullshit because if every single Black person were to wake up and be racist towards whites…white people wouldn't be held back in any way.
I don't think there's a fundamental difference but I would agree that black people, 'as a group', are vulnerable to widespread white racism in a way that white people aren't to black racism because white people are the majority in Western countries.
Our feelings are reactionary to a large degree.
I think some white people resent 'black people' for some of the same reasons that some black people resent 'white people' (bad personal experiences, double standards and negative stereotypes about them perpetrated by out-group members,). At least, "society" is, on paper, sympathetic to anti-black racism ; it's not generally considered politically correct.
Can you, as a Black person or any other minority, degrade another race to the point where it affects your (do you mean their?) job, where you (they?) live, where your (their?) child can attend school?? Do you, as a Black person control how other races can be portrayed via big market media?? Are u as a Black person, able to be as rambunctious, hood, loud, etc. without your personal actions being a reflection of your race as a whole??
To some extent, yes. White people can be the victims of these things.
