Can white people ever experience racism?

[LittleRedCourgettes]

Following a discussion on this topic with some students, I was reading this article and am interested to hear your honest thoughts on this question.....

https://www.nas.org/blogs/article/wherediddwegetttheideaathatonlyywhitepeopleecanbeeracist

I stated it so no one addressed me as a bame person or took what I was saying as the perspective of a bame person. I have my views on the subject, but I accept that my views are coming from a totally different vantage point. Is that what you meant or have I missed the point spectacularly?

How dare you compare yourself to what black people went through.
Nobody has.

@Mandalakia

No. Racism is the oppression and exploitation of a race over time (centuries). Just because someone told you white men can't jump or that English people are shits it doesn't mean you experienced racism. How dare you compare yourself to what black people went through.

For those that wish to make it a thing, I'm white English.

I agree with your definition of racism but how dare you suggest that only Black people have experienced racism.

AIMD - well, "wanting the adults helping to reflect the children they were working with", sounds good in theory. I'm not stupid and fully understand the implicit message.
But there were no BAME adults willing/able to help in this particular scheme. These kids were disadvantaged, but the situation was of its time, and quite complex.
My friend and I offered to help because of this, but also because we wanted to help break down racial divides, not exacerbate them.
The upshot of all this was that the activities didn't go ahead because there were no BAME people available, and non-BAME people were deemed unacceptable. Happy now?

@ReggieKrait

It depends which definition of “racism” you want to use. This has been lifted directly from the Equality Act 2010.

What the Equality Act says about race discrimination:

The Equality Act 2010 says you must not be discriminated against because of your race.

In the Equality Act, race can mean your colour, or your nationality (including your citizenship). It can also mean your ethnic or national origins, which may not be the same as your current nationality. For example, you may have Chinese national origins and be living in Britain with a British passport.

Race also covers ethnic and racial groups. This means a group of people who all share the same protected characteristic of ethnicity or race.

A racial group can be made up of two or more distinct racial groups, for example black Britons, British Asians, British Sikhs, British Jews, Romany Gypsies and Irish Travellers.

You may be discriminated against because of one or more aspects of your race, for example people born in Britain to Jamaican parents could be discriminated against because they are British citizens, or because of their Jamaican national origins.

Exactly. Unless we agree what racism means it's impossible to discuss who can experience it. There is an actual legal definition of the word racism so using that one seems to make sense.

@PoplarTrees

Unfortunately you/we are dealing with people that only want the one definition of racism.

They fail to see that there chosen definition is the sociology definition and it works on a societal/systematic level.

They ignore the definition of racism that applies to the individual.

Why they do this I have no idea.

For those that wish to make it a thing, I'm white English

Obviously.

I have been on the receiving end of anti-Semitism so I guess so.

My family are orthodox and i was brought up in a traditional way. I didn’t get a proper education because I was a girl and my job was to get married and have some kids. I worked up till I married as a secretary and experienced a lot of bullying by my boss and was pushed out of the job due to it. I’ve been in groups of people where the subject of greasy Jews or tight Jews or crooked Jews has been brought up. It made my heart sink to hear the comments that were made and know that some of the people in the group new full well I was Jewish and the subject had been brought up deliberately and have no one put a stop to it.

I am not as easy to pick on In general as black people are. Although I look typically Jewish, quite a lot of people can’t recognise Jewish features. Unlike black people whose skin colour and hair types easily marks them out as a minority. So I would say yes ethnic minority group white people can experience racism but not as much or as often as black people do.

When I was 14 I was on a train. The train then filled with Indian people, they yelled white neck white neck and me so aggressively I got off the train as was crying. I've never experienced anything like that since but it was horrible

@HmmSureJan

Honestly, she explains exactly what she means in the blog post which the book is named after. She is talking about people who are determined to not see her point. If you are determined to not see racism and it's affects on black people skip it, if you are a reasonable human try it.

That book is being widely discredited with the main complaint being that Robin DiAngelo is herself a horrific racist and is basically making money out of convincing other white people they are too. Did you know also that the author runs seminars telling other white people how racist they are at £12k a time? That white woman sure is making good money out of talking about black peoples oppression.

I think you may be confusing two different books? The PP was talking about "Why I'm no longer talking to white people about race" which is written by Reni Eddo-Lodge who is black.

I have fair skin and blue eyes and have experienced racism because of this when I lived in the south of Spain.

@ichundich

I have fair skin and blue eyes and have experienced racism because of this when I lived in the south of Spain.

In what way?

@Falafelwrap lol the fact you have to resort to calling me Becky makes me lol! But also gives me insight into your personality which makes engaging a bit pointless. But FWIW the dictionary is probably a good starting point when contemplating the meaning of words (such as racism).

@AnnabelleMarx

A lot of people are confusing xenophobia and racism.

A lot of people also don’t know what race is. English is not a race.

Racism requires that the person on the receiving end belongs to a race that has been, and usually still is, oppressed.

Having the national identity of a colonial power and imagining that’s a race and any negative encounter you experience is racism is unbelievably stupid and simply demonstrates you’ve never thought about racism with any depth at all.

Annabelle, if you'd thought about racism in any depth you would have realised that there is no clear definition of race so you cannot decide for everyone else what constitutes a race and what is racism.

"Racism is the oppression and exploitation of a race over time (centuries). "

That's not the usual definition of racism.

I'm 40 and moved to Scotland from England at aged 4.

At around 21 I was walking home in a Scottish city one night on the phone talking when suddenly someone appeared behind me saying they were going to stab me because I was a English bitch, then they battered me over the head with something, I ended up in hospital

I dated a Nigerian before marrying my husband , he had family in London who we used to visit , I'd walk down the local high street of the area they lived Peckham holding my boyfriends hand and black women who hiss at me as I walked past and also say stop stealing our men, along with other not nice comments to me or at him about me . It wasn't a place I felt comfortable in at all. This was around 2004/5 time.

Oh and in Bradford one time , I was walking with 2 female friends and a car slowed down and a Asian young man threw a glass bottle out the windows at us while shouting we were white slags. This was about 1999 I was around 20 years old then.

what a racist and disgusting question, I am the grandaughter or irish and jewish immigrants and constantly get weird questions about my heritage. I lived in leicester for 18 months and was racially abused by people of colour on a daily basis, threatened, harrassed etc.

I grew up in Northern Ireland during 'the troubles'.

Many innocent catholics (including children) were shot and killed by the British Army during my childhood in the 70s and 80s. Some were killed during peaceful protests or in the case of one of the kids that went to my school, while walking back from the shop, a pint on milk in hand.

The Police Force had next to no Catholics serving. In the 70s discrimination against catholics in Employment and Social Housing was blatant.

The European Court of Human Rights found the British Govt guilty of torture for their interrogation methods for catholic suspects.

Innocent catholics were fitted up by English Police and served time (Birmingham 6, Guildford 4).

When I moved to England as an adult I was often hassled by police once my accent was heard. I've been called a stupid paddy and had the jokes about potatoes and leprechauns and been told all Irish people are really good at playing musical instruments and like a drink.

You can't call it racism if your definition of racism involves discrimination based on the colour of your skin.

Call it what you want.

@Gwenhwyfar

"Racism is the oppression and exploitation of a race over time (centuries). "

That's not the usual definition of racism.

I believe it is the WOKE definition

If you class Jewish as a race, then yes I have encountered it. I'm white.

DH is also Jewish and not white. He has received abuse for his dark skin as well as his Jewishness.

Absolutely white people can experience racism in the UK and elsewhere. They may not be the main recipients of racist abuse but they certainly can face racism. Sometimes some very serious and awful racism too like the racially motivated murder of 15 year old Kriss Donald in Glasgow because he was white.

It’s silly and simplistic to think racism is from white people directed to black people. It’s not the legal definition at all which is less favourable treatment of anyone by anyone on grounds of race. Similarly sexism can be directed by women towards men

Also the idea that white people are the “dominant” group in every society is narrow minded and racist too. There are many increasingly wealthy societies with non white majorities.