Well, yes, to be precise, there is no such thing as "Reverse-racism" since racism is prejudice toward ANY race, including a dominant one.
"Reverse-racism" is generally used to describe racism directed toward the majority or dominant "race" in a society.
"Reverse" implies a definite direction is the normal condition in racist beliefs--that whites are the typical racists, other are victims. Thus, using the expression "reverse racism" reinforces this silly idea; more thoughtful folks, who take pride in precision of thought and language, and say "anti-white racism" or "anti-white discrimination".
More deeply, the question is one of whether it's smart to use the techniques of racism to combat it in the hopes of fostering a racism-free color-blind society.
Stanley Fish wrote:
"In this country whites once set themselves apart from blacks and claimed privileges for themselves while denying them to others. Now, on the basis of race, blacks are claiming special status and reserving for themselves privileges they deny to others. Isn't one as bad as the other? The answer is no.....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."
Similar acts do not make similar moral equivalences. You must also look at results to judge properly. Shove old lady over a cliff, or shove old lady out of way of speeding bus. It just doesn't do to say "shoving old ladies is bad".
Fish goes on:
"At this point someone will always say, "But two wrongs don't make a right; if it was wrong to treat blacks unfairly, it is wrong to give blacks preference and thereby treat whites unfairly." This objection is just another version of the forgetting and rewriting of history. The work is done by the adverb "unfairly," which suggests two more or less equal parties, one of whom has been unjustly penalized by an incompetent umpire."
Thomas Sowell
just avoids this nearly unwinnable argument/conundrum and employs others points against affirmative action.
