Just when you think we’re making progress in racial equality across the United States something sets it back.
The most recent example of that is in the case of Jussie Smollett, an African American disgraced former actor who allegedly lied to Chicago Police and the country that two white “MAGA” President Trump supporters battered him in January. This kind of racial inequality nonsense continues every day even if it’s not always reported in the news.
But one story about how a music festival backtracked on ticket pricing after charging white people $10 more than people of color absolutely did make national headlines.
It’s called “reverse racism.” It’s a complicated term with confusing ambiguous definitions and connotations depending on whom you talk to. Most people define it as a means of discrimination or prejudice directed towards a dominant or privileged racial group. In the United States they specifically mean white people.
Most people will say it was a term invented by conservative groups in order to justify the inequality of social action programs like Affirmative Action – allowing minorities privileges over the college admission and job hiring process.
But others say there’s no such thing; it’s just called racism. Those making that argument think it’s silly because it insinuates minorities have the power to do to them what they have done to us throughout history. In other words, white people are and should feel guilty about how their ancestors treated people of color.
That ideology carries toxicity with it where minorities are allowed to be overtly racist against white people in the United States with zero consequences because of the oppression their ancestors faced by “privileged” white people.
There was a 2014 American comedy-drama called “Dear White People” where a character actually states, “black people can’t be racist. Prejudiced, yes, but not racist. Racism describes a system of disadvantage based on race. Black people can’t be racists since we don’t stand to benefit from such a system.”
That illogical categorically false notion misses the mark by a long shot. That quote insinuates that literally no African Americans have ever reaped the benefits of capitalism in the United States of America. We all know that’s not true. Also, the proof is in the title. What if a group of white filmmakers made a film called “Dear Black People.” What kind of outrage do you think it would spark?
Here’s another example of it.
A Detroit, Michigan music festival called AfroFuture Fest has tickets selling online for an upcoming August show.
Originally they had on their site “Early Bird POC Ticket” for $10 each while they also had “Early Bird NONPOC Ticket” for $20.
Thankfully, they backpedalled immediately.
Now the website charges a standard $20 General Admission ticket on the site.
One biracial rapper, Tiny Jag – whose real name is Jillian Graham, was outraged at the festival’s racist decision.
She told the Detroit Metro Times, “I was immediately enraged just because I am biracial. I have family members that would have, under those circumstances, been subjected to something that I would not ever want them to be in … especially not because of anything that I have going on.”
Graham, who said her grandmother is white, said while she understands the goal of equity and equality for the black community, she called the move “non-progressive” and “not solution-focused.”
The festival argued their decision was essentially based on making sure “marginalized communities (people of color)” could afford the ticket pricing.
As if all white people are rich and all black people are poor?
That’s incredibly racist to assume such an outrageous notion like that with blanketing nonsense.