@MockersxxxxxxxSocialDistancing
Racial Prejudice is the expression of an opinion. Racism is the experience of people who suffer disadvantage as a result of the racial prejudice of others. Racism is an experience, not an expression.
Simples.
I've name changed for this.
I haven't read the whole thread, just the first and the last pages, but I can just imagine the arguing over 27 pages!
The quote above more or less encapsulates what, for me, is the difference.
It has nothing to do with being a majority or a minority. I grew up black in a country that was majority black or brown, with white people at the very pinnacle of the societal hierarchy.
This does something to the psyche, especially as a child. You grow up with a deep sense of knowing you are unworthy and will never be worthy, can never be worthy, because of your skin colour. You grow up wishing you were white, because that's the only way to be worthy. This is what your society teaches you.
Later, living in a majority white country, I tried to teach my children otherwise. I had overcome my own deepseated sense of inferiority, but I believe something so ingrained is almost impossible to uproot. I didn't want my children to go through this.
I remember well my daughter asking, why is it that all the cleaners in the supermarket are black? Wondering why all the people with status and importance were white.
I remember admiring, all through my youth, the self confidence and sense of entitlement white people seemed to have, especially in their dealings with people of colour. There seemed to be an automatic assumption of superiority -- very well masked, it is true, but there all the time.
There is something about dark skin that somehow makes people of light skin wary, uneasy, a sense of "difference" -- even those who are kind and caring and so not demonstrate prejudice.
When people of dark skin turn the tables and start hating whites, it's not because they think they are superior. It's a defense; it's a shield against presumed attack. Reverse racism is not a real thing. The motivation is quite different.
Now, I have many very dear white friends. Nobody really knows of the struggle I had to attain the confidence in life I now demonstrate. I've attained some manner or "success", which earns me praise from white people; but the wounds are still there and deep inside, I do remember.
It's these experiences I wish to convey when white people say "I experience racism too! It's exactly the same!"
No, it isn't.
I believe that deep inside we are all one, that white and black are so superficial as to be of no meaning whatsoever. But as in the quote above, anyone who has experienced that deep sense of basic unworthyness, invalidity, will have a harder battle.
I've never made a great deal of this or asked for pity or understanding. But just imagine it. Imagine, just as one example, if for you, as a white child, every single child's book that was read to you, or you read yourself, had only black characters. Every single character in every book was black. Not one single white character. Ever.
How would you have felt? (I know a lot has changed since then. But this was my reality.)