Reverse Racism, Critical Race Theory, and Richard Henry Pratt

Somehow I am always brought back to the question -  or more so the very defensive statement “but you can be racist to white people…” and typically the basis of the argument Yes! Yes! You can! falls back on “the dictionary says that  racism is discrimination of the skin color”.

I feel as if most feminists have to combat this argument… but the dictionary says… too often and while it is good to have facts and evidence to support the argument it is also really difficult to navigate the truth behind reverse racism when people pick and choose when they are going to use accurate context descriptors. 

We’ll start by noting that the person who coined the Oxford English dictionary term racism was Richard Henry Pratt, a white man. While he coined the term in a speech decrying against prejudism in the era of racial segregation we can gather that Pratt himself was a racist. While he is acclaimed progressive by Americans for his effort in abolishing segregation and re-evaluating Native American assimilation, he is much better-remembered for a rather contrary coinage: Kill the Indian...save the man.

"A great general has said that the only good Indian is a dead one," Pratt said. "In a sense, I agree with the sentiment, but only in this: that all the Indian there is in the race should be dead. Kill the Indian in him, and save the man."

He pushed for the complete erasure of Native cultures among Native students he relocated among American boarding schools where native tongue was forbidden and punishable. "No bilingualism was accommodated at these boarding schools," said Christina Snyder, a historian at Indiana University

"The most significant consequence of this policy is the loss of languages," Snyder says. "All native languages are [now] endangered and some of them are extinct."

The loss of language, the spike in preventable diseases, the toleration of physical and sexual abuse and the complete unwanted submergence of white colonialism exhibited through horrific mistreatment and suffering were centerpieces of these boarding schools. Each is said to have its own cemeteries. 

In the era of segregation coining the term racism as a testimonial for black suffrages was a progressive monument in early American politics and linguistics. The issue with progressiveness at the hands of white saviorism is that as long as we perceive progression as the good will of white politicians we enable American culture and language to remain centered around white ideology. 

In historical context when we evaluate the word racism… if we are truly breaking it down with dictionary argument then Pratt was a racist himself while inveighing against discrimination for black suffragettes he was still practicing it by ethnic erasure during the assimilation of Native Americans. 

In 2013, a woman named Emily Johnson Dickerson, the last person who spoke only the Chickasaw language died.

That's the truth behind the deterioration of language and the effects of Richard Henry Pratt’s legacy.

Aside from the man who coined the term being a racial aggressor in himself, the term racism and the argument that you can be racist to white people is inherently flawed through Critical Race Theory and modern terminology. While obviously what we as Americans view as progressive and traditional are avant-garde, too many of us are still looking at the literal definition of racism to be a center-point in massive upheaval on who is right and who is behind. This has to do with Critical Race Theory and how racism is a weapon of white origin that is used to sustain social hierarchies in politics and in the global society. Even the context in which Henry Pratt originally  coined the term supports that racism is an ordeal of white supremacy. In Critical Race Theory race is defined by something used by one group of people to suppress other groups of people to keep them below. If, especially in America white people are considered of global supremacy and at the top of the social pyramid then racism and the weaponization of prejudices can only be used in a downwards cycle (to suppress those beneath them) being well… the marginalized. 

You can’t be racist to white people, but you can re-evaluate how important historical context and Critical Race Theory is when having the conversation...

...and also, maybe ask yourself why do white people want to be oppressed so badly?