It's high time radical liberals start to practice what they preach.
Please stop insisting "you can't be racist towards white people."(1) I'm looking at you, Manisha Krishnan, Senior Writer for Vice magazine. I get that you're a woman of color, so I'll ask you to check your privilege before dismissing my thoughts simply because they originate from the mind of a white male. When discussing the daunting issues of the day, like race, gender, and sexuality, all perspectives are valuable, regardless of what the color of my skin is or what chromosomes I was born with.
I get it. People of color, queer, trans, and other minorities are "oppressed." Our culture is not perfect - far from it. However, minorities have more rights here than most other places on the planet. Enshrined in our law is freedom of speech, religious practices, and self-determination, these are things many have fought and died for, and as such we should respect them. More than that, we must honor them.
When you tell an entire skin-color that it's "literally impossible" to be racist against them, you're not only wrong. You're delusional. Given: white people are not a race. However, when you address a group by the color of their skin the content will be perceived as racial, ie having to do with race. We should stop pretending reverse racism is real, it's simply racism. It's not even new, racism or beliefs that 'those people are all that way' is as old as our species. Making it hip to do it to wypipo doesn't magically make it 'not racism.'
Let's talk about Yusra Khogali, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Toronto. Granted, she's an extreme example, however this is exactly the kind of racist vitriol that you dismissed in your recent piece for Vice. Her now infamous and since deleted tweet, "Plz Allah give me strength to not cuss/kill these men and white folks out here today. Plz Plz Plz." does offer an interesting snap-shot into her frame of mind. Let's not dwell on it though, tweets are often rash, and she deleted it.
She's also argued for the superiority of black folk due to the production of melanin and stated quite clearly, "[white people] are genetically deficient, melanin enables black skin to capture light and hold it in its memory mode which reveals that blackness converts light into knowledge. white people are recessive genetic defects. this is factual."(2)
There's more, but I mean, how can that not-be considered racist? Oh, because "white people won't get fired or denied services." Not true either, one of my friends was told point-blank they weren't promoting any more white men at his old job. You probably smirked at that, thinking "well, good." Except that it completely invalidated the "white people don't face systemic oppression" point by introducing MORE systemic oppression.
I wouldn't claim white men are oppressed - I don't even like the language here, it seems cheap and tacky; being into other men, that's not something I can tolerate. Is there inequality? Of course! Do we need some form of financial redistribution? Totally! Must we end this drug war and remove violent cops? Hell ya! Legalize weed, make education, healthcare, and housing free or very very cheap, and stop waging wars all over the world. I'm down.
Racism is one of the ways the real baddies keep us apart and divided. It's classic Machiavelli. Just because white people are perceived as 'in power' doesn't mean we all are. Most of the powerful are psychopaths, narcissists, and enablers that killed off their consciences long ago. White, black, male, female, Jew or Muslim - they come in all shapes and sizes. Those people are the only ones we actually need to worry about.
1.) https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/kwzjvz/dear-white-people-please-stop-pretending-reverse-racism-is-real
2.) https://archive.fo/kpjIG