The term "reverse racism" has always bothered me, but until recently I never realized why. I suppose there are some people in academia who still think that "black people can't be racist," because black people don't have the political or social power to implement their prejudice as policy, but these people are obviously a minority. As I've been thinking about the New Black Panther Party voter-intimidation case, and reading through the conservative complaints, it occurred to me why so many people use the term "reverse racism" rather than "racism" to refer to racial prejudice expressed by blacks toward whites. It's because "reverse racism" offers a clear distinction between racial prejudice against nonwhites, which doesn't matter, and racial prejudice against whites, which does. I'm sure I'm not the first person to figure this out, but I just thought it was worth mentioning.
