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TL;DR Racial prejudice is not the same as racism
Racial prejudice describes a pejorative or discriminatory attitude that is often founded on racial stereotypes and attached to perceptions about race, skin colour, or nationality. Racial stereotypes exist for every race, and therefore white people can be victims of racial prejudice.
However, there are significantly fewer racial stereotypes about white people than about any other race because in our society, whiteness is seen as default and non-whiteness as other. In general, racial stereotypes about white people are also less damaging than stereotypes about other races – more often to do with dancing or mayonnaise than violence or intelligence. Whilst white people can be victims of racial prejudice, this is uncommon: in general, people from other races experience racial prejudice at a higher rate and degree than white people.
There is a fundamental difference between racism and racial prejudice. Racism is characterized by its relation to systemic power. In 2020, a graduate from Drake University called Kennedy Mitchum asked the Merriam-Webster dictionary to revise its definition of racism to reference the systemic aspects inherent to it. Mitchum defines racism as “not only prejudice against a certain race due to the color of a person’s skin… It is both prejudice combined with social and institutional power. It is a system of advantage based on skin color”.
Racial prejudice against white people is not racism because it is not systemic. White people cannot be victims of racism because we exist in a racialised society that favours whiteness – throughout history, social and institutional power has rested with white people. White people benefit the repercussions of this every day, such as in education, career opportunities, and healthcare.
So you don't think there are racial stereotypes for whites? How about all white people are "privileged". I work with at-risk kids and they are all colors, including white. It doesn't make them more or less at-risk. And it definitely doesn't make them privileged.
I agree that there are racial stereotypes about white people, but I think that they usually have less harmful consequences than racial stereotypes about people of colour, for example in education or healthcare.
Many white people are less privileged than some people of colour but these are owing to an intersection of factors other than race, such as social class, money, gender identity, disability, religion, and nationality, among many others. White privilege is only one aspect of social privilege, and will have more benefits for someone with other social privileges than for those without them.
Systemic racism isn't the only type of racism. White people can experience interpersonal racism.
I understand interpersonal racism to be a symptom of systemic racism, and therefore I don't agree that white people can experience interpersonal racism - however I do think that they can experience racial prejudice.
calling a white person a racial slur is interpersonal racism. that can happen without the insulter having any systemic power. this is just one example.
The United States is not the only country, nor is this question limited to it. As a global average, society unfortunately favors whiteness, but there are plenty of countries where this is not true and there exist both structural and societal anti-white pressures that go beyond mere prejudice. Even in countries like Japan, where blackness is coded even more negatively, whiteness is still coded negatively to a lesser extent.
That Japan example is fascinating.
But I wonder whether that doesn't reinforce the point about racism that's being made in the context of the West: that you can only suffer racism as the non-dominant ethnicity.
Prejudice can exist everywhere, for it to qualify as racism it has to be systemic.
And therefore, in the West, white people cannot be victims of racism.
Judging people based on the color of their skin can happen to anyone. You don't have to be a person of color to experience racism.
Racism Definition: Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior.
Anyone that thinks White people cannot be victims of racism are the same people that think Murderers cannot be victims of Murder.. its non sensical and not even close to reality.
From a historical point of view, every single group of people has it some point been subject to racism. I wish that the question was more specific about the time period and/or social situation they are talking about.
Make the case or invite a friend to comment!