Overview The concept of
reverse racism in the United States is commonly associated with
conservative opposition to color-conscious policies aimed at addressing racial inequality, such as
affirmative action. Amy E. Ansell of
Emerson College identifies three main claims about reverse racism: that government programs to redress racial inequality create "invisible victims" in
white men; that racial preferences violate the individual right of
equal protection before the law; and that
color consciousness itself prevents moving beyond the legacy of racism. The concept of reverse racism has also been used in relation to various expressions of hostility, prejudice or discrimination toward white people by members of minority groups.
History Concerns that the advancement of
African Americans might cause harm to
white Americans date back as far as the
Reconstruction Era in the context of debates over providing
reparations for slavery. Claims of reverse racism in the early 21st century tend to rely on individual
anecdotes, often based on third- or fourth-hand reports, such as of a white person losing a job to a Black person. Allegations of reverse racism emerged prominently in the 1970s, building on the
racially color-blind view that any preferential treatment linked to membership in a racial group was morally wrong. Sociologist
Bob Blauner argues that reverse racism had become the primary meaning of
racism among whites by the late 1970s, suggesting that conservatives and
centrist liberals in the U.S. had effectively "won the battle over the meaning of racism". Where past race-conscious policies such as
Jim Crow have been used to maintain
white supremacy, modern programs such as affirmative action aim to reduce racial inequality. Despite affirmative-action programs' successes in doing so, conservative opponents claimed that such programs constituted a form of anti-white racism. For example, sociologist
Nathan Glazer argued in his 1975 book
Affirmative Discrimination that affirmative action was a form of reverse racism violating white people's right to equal protection under the law. This view was boosted by the Supreme Court's decision in
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978), which said that
racial quotas for minority students were discriminatory against
white people. Legal cases concerning so-called "reverse racism" date back as far as the 1970s, for instance
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke;
Gratz v. Bollinger; and
Grutter v. Bollinger (regarding discrimination in higher education admissions) and
Ricci v. DeStefano (regarding employment discrimination). Such cases are rare; out of almost half a million complaints filed with the
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) between 1987 and 1994, four percent were about reverse discrimination. Sociologist
Eduardo Bonilla-Silva writes that the actual number of reverse discrimination cases filed with the EEOC is quite small, and the vast majority are dismissed as unfounded. Between 1990 and 1994, courts in the U.S. rejected all reverse discrimination cases as without merit. Since 2020, conservative activists such as
Stephen Miller and
Edward Blum have challenged
diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs as being discriminatory towards whites. Following the 2023 Supreme Court ruling against race-conscious affirmative action in college admissions, US courts have seen an increase in reverse discrimination claims, with some individual plaintiffs being awarded damages against companies such as
Starbucks and
Novant Health.
Public attitudes While not empirically supported, belief in reverse racism is widespread in the United States, primarily among white people. Psychological studies with white Americans have shown that belief in anti-white discrimination is linked with support for the existing racial hierarchy in the U.S. as well as the belief that "hard work" and meritocracy explain any racial disparities. The idea that whites have become a socially disadvantaged group has contributed to the rise of conservative social movements such as the
Tea Party and support for
Donald Trump. Conservatives in the U.S. tend to believe that affirmative action based on membership in a designated racial group threatens the American system of individualism and
meritocracy. Ansell associates the idea of reverse racism with that of the "
angry white male" and a
backlash against government actions meant to remedy racial discrimination. The perception of decreasing anti-Black discrimination has been correlated with white people's belief in rising anti-white discrimination. A survey in
Pennsylvania in the mid-1990s found that most white respondents (80%) thought it was likely that a white worker might lose a job or a promotion to a less qualified Black worker, while most Black respondents (57%) thought this was unlikely. A majority (57%) of white respondents to a 2016 survey by the
Public Religion Research Institute said they believed discrimination against white people was as significant a problem as discrimination against Black people, while only a minority of African Americans (29%) and Hispanics (38%) agreed. Researchers at
Tufts University and
Harvard report that as of the early 2010s many white Americans feel as though they suffer the greatest discrimination among racial groups, despite data to the contrary. Whereas Black respondents see anti-Black racism as a continuing problem, white ones tend to think it has largely disappeared, to the point that they see prejudice against white people as being more prevalent. Among white respondents since the 1990s: Bonilla-Silva describes the "anti–affirmative action and 'reverse racism' mentality" that has become dominant since the 1980s as part of a "mean-spirited white racial animus". He argues that this results from a new dominant ideology of "
color-blind racism", which treats racial inequality as a thing of the past, thereby allowing it to continue by opposing concrete efforts at reform. Journalist
Vann R. Newkirk II writes that white people's belief in reverse racism has steadily increased since the
civil rights movement of the 1960s. Using data from the 2006
Portraits of American Life Study, Damon Mayrl and Aliya Saperstein find that whites who claim to have experienced racial discrimination are "more likely to be racially self-aware, to be pessimistic about the future, and to have a recent history of unemployment compared to their non-discrimination-reporting peers".
Scholarly analysis While there has been little empirical study on the subject of reverse racism, the few existing studies have found little evidence that white males, in particular, are victimized by affirmative-action programs.
Race relations in the United States have been historically shaped by
European imperialism and long-standing oppression of Blacks by whites, who remain the dominant group. Such disparities in power and authority are seen by scholars as an essential component of
racism; in this view, isolated examples of favoring disadvantaged people do not constitute racism. In a widely reprinted article, legal scholar
Stanley Fish wrote that Reverse racism' is a cogent description of affirmative action only if one considers the cancer of racism to be morally and medically indistinguishable from the therapy we apply to it". Sociologist
Ellis Cashmore writes that the terms
reverse racism and
reverse discrimination imply that racism is defined solely by individual beliefs and prejudices, ignoring the material relations between different groups. Sociologist
Joe Feagin argues that the term
reverse discrimination is an
oxymoron in the context of U.S. race relations in that it obscures the "central issue of
systemic racism" disadvantaging people of color. Critical race theorist
David Theo Goldberg says the notion of reverse racism represents a denial of the historical and contemporary reality of racial discrimination. Sociologist
Karyn McKinney writes, "most claims that whites are victimized rely on false parallels, as they ignore the power differences between whites and people of color at the group level". Anthropologist
Jane H. Hill argues that charges of reverse racism tend to deny the existence of
white privilege and power in society. Linguist
Mary Bucholtz says the concept of reverse racism, which she calls
racial reversal, "runs counter to or ignores empirically observable racial asymmetries regarding material resources and structural power". According to sociologist
Rutledge Dennis, individual members of minority groups in the United States "may be racists" toward white people, but cannot wield institutional power or shape the opportunities available to the majority as the white majority does in relation to minorities. Sociologists
Matthew Desmond and
Mustafa Emirbayer distinguish between
institutional racism and
interpersonal racism, arguing that while "members of all racial groups can harbor negative attitudes toward members of other groups", there is no "black institutional racism" or "reverse institutional racism" since people of color have not created a socially ingrained system of racial domination over white people. Psychologist and educator
Beverly Daniel Tatum argues that racial bigotry or prejudices held by people of color are not comparable to white racism since "there is no systematic cultural and institutional support or sanction" for them. Tatum writes, "In my view, reserving the term
racist only for behaviors committed by Whites in the context of a White-dominated society is a way of acknowledging the ever-present power differential afforded Whites by the culture and institutions that make up the system of advantage and continue to reinforce notions of White superiority." Promotion of
substantive equality, for example through affirmative action, may violate
formal equality of opportunity according to
Richard Arneson. Differences between equality concepts are also called Dilemma of difference. ==South Africa==