Can white people in the USA be victims of racism?

We are socialised into a world where white is the default race

Question: Can white people in the USA be victims of racism?
Position1 of 2›: No, white people cannot be victims of racism
Argument1 of 4›: We are socialised into a world where white is the default race

White people operate within an environment that protects them, and limits opportunity for non-whites to share their experiences of racialised prejudice. In the West, this context creates expectations for so-called "racial comfort". Simultaneously, it creates norms whereby white people become defensive about, and sensitive too, any kind of "racial stress" that threatens their position within the social hierarchy. This stress is performed through anger, sadness, allegiance, pity and weaponised empathy, in such a way that impedes further dialogue. This is what we mean by "white fragility". It is so intrinsic to white identities that when we deconstruct this behaviour, and the interactions between white and non white populations, once thing is clear. That is, all white people (in the West) are unconsciously racist, by virtue of being white, and having been socialised into a world with lopsided race relations. At its heart, is the flawed belief that being white is the default setting and non-whites are variations from this standard. It is as journalist Laurie Penny writes: "“For white people...acknowledging the reality of racism means acknowledging our own guilt and complicity.” Proponents include academic and author Dr Robin DiAngelo.

The argument

Many cultures around the world have expressed, both historically and presently, a preference for lighter skin over darker skin. This preference is no different in the US, where, despite a history of racial diversity since the country's birth, colorism has manifested as whiteness being the default for those who have any semblance of wealth or power. On this argument that default is not an accident of demography but an inheritance: the US was founded on the premise of white superiority and the white man's destiny to expand across the land while oppressing minorities in the name of "education." The argument then turns on a definition. Modern definitions of racism have expanded to include the oppression or domination of another racial group based on feelings of racial or cultural superiority, which makes racism a matter of structural power rather than of individual dislike. On that definition, whether a group can be subject to racism depends on whether it is positioned to be dominated — and white people continue to be overly represented in positions of power across both government and business, while minorities continue to fight for equal representation in these areas. What follows is asymmetry rather than symmetry. Hate-filled speech against white people does not have the same real-world impact as white racism does on racial minorities, because the same words backed by different amounts of institutional power do different amounts of damage: one expresses hostility, while the other is reinforced by the arrangements that decide who is hired, policed, housed and represented. While prejudice exists across all of humankind, and this position does not deny that individuals of any race can hold it, minorities cannot be racist towards the majority ruling group while this power imbalance exists.

Premises

[P1]The US was founded on white superiority, and whiteness remains the default associated with wealth and power. [P2] Modern racism means the domination of a racial group based on a power imbalance, and white people remain overrepresented in positions of power. [P3] Prejudice against white people lacks the real-world impact that racism against minorities has, since minorities cannot dominate the majority ruling group. [C] Therefore, because we are socialised into a world where white is the default race, white people cannot be victims of racism.

Counter-arguments

Races of all kinds exist all around the world and their existence is not threatened by the existence of white people. White is not the default race in many parts of the world, and in those places, whiteness is the minority or the exception. Racism is the belief of superiority of one race over another, and there are many instances where racial minorities are given preference over white people, such as in affirmative action.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] A history of colourism and a founding hierarchy establish that racial domination existed and still has effects. They do not establish the much stronger claim the conclusion needs — that no member of the historically dominant group can ever be the target of racism. [Rejecting P2] The decisive move here is definitional rather than factual: the argument adopts a definition of racism as domination resting on a power imbalance and then derives the conclusion from it. The counter-argument disputes that definition, not the history, and the argument offers no defence of the choice against the ordinary usage in which racism is prejudice or hostility on the basis of race. [Rejecting P3] Aggregate overrepresentation in national institutions does not settle how power is distributed in every setting where an individual meets racial hostility. Moving from a group-level structural claim to a claim about what can happen to any individual is the step the argument skips.

Proponents cited

Tiffanie Drayton
“While white people busy themselves with their feelings about hate-filled words directed at them, which have no real ramifications, people of color literally fear their freedom, life, and liberty when confronted with racist rhetoric. Though white men, and particularly members of the “alt-right,” love to scream about “racism against white people” or “white genocide,” there is truly no example of either. Such white angst sounds much more like the expression of fears relating to reckoning with and confronting privilege than it does an actual confrontation of racism.”
Laila Lalami
“If whiteness is no longer the default and is to be treated as an identity — even, soon, a “minority” — then perhaps it is time white people considered the disadvantages of being a race.”