Podcast’s script for the ones who can not handle my superb french accent 🇫🇷
Hello everyone, I noticed that in social psychology we speak a lot about discrimination and racism for instance when we speak about the different bias that can exist in the recruitment. However, it always concerns what we named “minorities” such as black people. Thus I wondered : what about white people? Does anti-white racism exist?
This is why, through this podcast, we are going to talk about racism and especially anti-white racism in France. And by the way I am talking about France because I don’t want to pronounce myself on the countries that I don’t know.
So first of all, what is anti-white racism? Anti-white racism is often used to refer to the abusive behaviour of other communities towards the white community. One of the reasons that could explain why we think that there is an anti-white racism today could be explained by the law. Indeed, the law is a discipline that is not based on moral rules for example, but on strict rules that apply to everyone, that concern everyone.
The notion of racism in law is totally different from what we can find in the social sciences. In law, the laws that condemn acts of racism (insults, violence, aggression, etc.) are general laws. This means that they apply to everyone. Any person, whether black, arab or white, can file a complaint for acts of racism and can be condemned. Therefore, one can think that everyone can be a victim of racism since the laws against racism concern everyone. That’s why in law, people find it very difficult to say that “no, there is no such thing as anti-white racism” because they are taught to have a very universal and general attitude of all the concepts that can exist. However, anti-white racism cannot exist.
The first thing we can look at is the use of the word “anti” in the expression “anti-white”. The term “anti” is used to indicate a real hostility, a real opposition. For example, if you are an anti-pollution person, you are going to do everything possible to fight pollution and stop pollution.
So the question we can ask ourselves is the following: is there really an anti-white atmosphere in France, that is to say, a real hostility, a real opposition to the white population? I don’t think so. In order to try to answer this, I have carried out an experiment and you can do the same. I removed the term “anti-white” and decided to go and see someone who believed in anti-white racism. I told to this person that he is not a victim of anti-white racism but of racism. This person answered “no, I am not a victim of racism, you are exaggerating, but I am a victim of anti-white racism”. It’s exactly at that point that I noticed that something was wrong because if, finally, when you are told that you are a victim of racism, you say “no, that’s exaggerated” and you need to create a new form of racism, that is to say, anti-white racism, it’s because deep down you know that what you are talking about is not strong enough to be called racism and maybe that’s because it’s not racism at all.
It is therefore time to ask the question “what is racism? ». In law, to take the starting point, the notion of racism is very individualistic because the law does not condemn society but individuals. We are going to say that such and such a person is guilty or a victim of racism. But we are not going to say that society is guilty or victim of racism. So if we follow the law, we should make a distinction between collective racism, systemic racism and individual racism, which is condemnable by the law. So we could say to ourselves that white people are not victims of systemic racism but of individual racism. But again, there is an importance of the words. By dint of talking about collective and individual racism, we blur the initial meaning of the word, which is systemic racism. So if you think that you are a victim of anti-white racism, do you really think that you are a victim of systemic, collective racism, that is to say regular discrimination in hiring, in housing, regular insults because of your skin color or your origins? And I insist on the regular aspect because that’s what makes racism systemic. That is to say that in everyday life, regularly, you will be confronted with it. This is what real racism is. And I dont think that white people face this kind of racism.
The real definition of racism is very strong and even historically it has a very powerful meaning. That’s why we shouldn’t even use the term individual racism because it tends to confuse and diminish the true meaning of racism, which is collective and systemic. Instead of talking about individual racism, we could just talk about racist behaviour. Saying “white trash” is a racist behaviour. But is it really anti-white racism? Because after this insult, which is going to be shocking and surely impact the moment because it is a very violent insult, will you then have to hide your picture on your Cvs as a white person? Will you be abusively controlled by the police because you correspond to a certain profile as a white person? The answer is obviously no.
So I’m not saying that as a white person you can’t be a victim of racist behaviours, whether it’s insults or discrimination, but these phenomena are so sporadic, irregular and have so little impact on the lives of these people as a whole, that we can’t talk about racism. We really need to remember the importance of the words. And speaking of words, the fact that only the term “racialized” is used to define people from other communities (black, arab, asian) but never the white community speaks volumes. Because the word “racialized” describes people who are victims or potential victims of racism. So, if indeed anti-white racism existed, white people would define themselves as a racialized population. But this is not the case.
It is therefore through this thought process that we can say that anti-white racism does not exist and that we should stop using it because it amounts to discrediting real racism and can create a form of reverse psychology as in the case of the “all life matter” when we talk about the “black life matter”.
So the moral of this podcast is that before using terms or talking about certain concepts, you have to make sure you know what it is all about!