White Bashing By: Hafsa abdi

GLOSSARY

Oppression: A prolonged cruel or unjust treatment or control.

White bashing: A term used describe a behavior that allows racism against european-caucasians and their descendants.

Democrat: Political group that favors power to the common folk, rather than the rich and elite.

Alienate: To make someone (people) feel isolated or estranged.

Bashing: There are two definitions of bashing, but in this article it refers to the one meaning sever criticism.

Scapegoat: A person (or group of people) who is blamed for the wrongdoings, mistakes, or faults of others.

Socio ecologic: Associated with ones social factors and institutions.

Socioeconomic: With the interaction of social and economic factors.

What constitutes as white bashing?

What’s considered white bashing varies on many levels. When anyone pokes fun at white people,white culture, and belittles white people it is called white bashing. When a group of college students, in 2016, according to an article in The Daily Caller, created a group called “We’ve Got Work To Do: White People for Deconstructing Whiteness”, they were labeled white bashers by their peers. They wanted to be able to talk about race issues surrounding white people, examine white privilege and try to improve their understanding of their race and how to better themselves as individuals. Whether or not their hearts were in the right place, they received major backlash. Another example of white bashing is when a chairman of the Democratic National Committee Sally Brown stated that Americans should “shut their mouths and listen if they are white (Shapiro)”. To say everyone whose white should shut their mouths is the epitome of belittling. Ironically enough, both Sally Brown and the college students who started the group are white. This raises the question of whether these incidents are “racist” or not.

Is white bashing racist?

White bashing is not considered racism. On what premise? According to sociologist Nicki Lisa Cole, “Racism refers to a variety of practices, beliefs, social relations, and phenomena that work to reproduce a racial hierarchy and social structure that yield superiority, power, and privilege for some, and discrimination and oppression for others.” This is a sociologic belief most people who say white bashing isn’t racist believe in. Author Esther J. Cepeda states, “People say it’s just a way for minorities to deal with actual oppression.” By the author saying ACTUAL oppression, she indirectly is saying that white people don’t go through oppression so comments towards their race is not racist because they don’t have a history of being oppressed. If white people do not have a history of facing racial oppression in America, this makes you wonder why “white bashing” strikes a chord with people.

Is white bashing only racist towards white people?

Most of what white people consider white bashing are white stereotypes, which can be applied to people who are non-white from similar socioeconomic backgrounds (Williams, Oliver, Neuberg). The authors believes that ecology based stereotypes override racism stereotypes. This is important because that means that what makes a person “white” besides their race, can be applied to a person of color because of their socio ecological status. The authors say race is “confounded” with where someone is from. So this means that American’s beliefs on one race is actually assumptions about what kind of home ecology they come from. Again, this is just trying to prove that it’s not really white bashing as it is socioecological bashing. Evidence suggests that predominant race stereotypes are more so formed on a person’s socioeconomic influence (Katz). This is important because it’s almost saying white bashing doesn’t exactly only pertain to white people. People form stereotypes on things like where someone lives, how they look (clothing, shoes, etc), and how they speak. This is important because it shows that white bashing isn’t racist to only white people if it can apply to non-white people.

Is “white bashing” actually harmful, in an important way, to white people?

White bashing is not harmful in a way. Author Zeba Blay explains why very well by stating, “In the very specific context of American history, white people have not been enslaved, colonized, or forced to segregate on the scale that black people have. They do not face housing or job discrimination, police brutality, poverty, or incarceration at the level that black people do. This is not to say that they do not experience things like poverty and police brutality at all. Again, not on the same scale.” Further proof that it’s not actually harmful could been seen with statistics like the following stating, “White people make up roughly 62 percent of the U.S. population but only about 49 percent of those who are killed by police officers (Washington Post).” This shows that although white people make up 62% of the population, 49% are on the receiving end of police brutality. This means more than half the people who are also on the receiving end are not white. If there’s no history of white people being oppressed in American history, up to today then “white bashing” isn’t harmful.

Is this trend reoccurring, if so what is being done to deal with it?

This article was written in 1992, so is seems like white bashing is a reoccurring trend. People use race as a scapegoat, according to the author. It’s easy to blame group in power for all that goes wrong. Apparently there is a school called “the bashing institute” according to Gabriel, which he said he attended since everyone is bashing each other nowadays, he thought he should get decent on it (Daily Press). I tried looking this place up however I couldn’t find anything solid on it, he may have said it sarcastically. Bashing a group of people is made very apparent during political season because people who are on different sides of the political spectrum tend to have many disagreements. Democrats blame all of country’s problems on rich people and their greed (Daily Press).This shows that people will bash anyone rather solve the problem at hand.

Sources Cited

Esther J. Cepeda | Syndicated Columnist. "OPINION — White-bashing becoming the new face of racism." Albuquerque Journal. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Jan. 2017.

"Fancypants White College Students Start SEGREGATED White-People-Bashing Club." The Daily Caller. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Jan. 2017.

Gabriel, Tony. "IF WE RUN OUT OF FOREIGNERS, BASH OURSELVES." Proquest. Daily Press, n.d. Web. 27 Jan. 2017.

Nicki Lisa Cole Sociology Expert. "What is Racism? A Sociologist Explains." About.com Education. N.p., 16 Dec. 2016. Web. 21 Feb. 2017.

Shapiro, Ben. "DNC Chair Candidates Can’t Stop Bashing White People: 'Shut Other White People Down'" Daily Wire. N.p., 24 Jan. 2017. Web. 26 Jan. 2017.

Williams, Keelah E.G, Oliver Sng, and Steven L. Neuberg. "Ecology-driver Stereotypes Override Race Stereotypes." Ebscohost. N.p., 28 Dec. 2015. Web. 2 Feb. 2017

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