Good Question

(WCCO) It's not an accusation you'd expect against a very successful, Hispanic, female Supreme Court nominee. But some critics are calling Sonia Sotomayor a "racist" or a "reverse-racist." Is it even possible for a minority to be a racist?

The answer depends on how you define racism.

In the classic definition of the term, "a component of racism is power," according to Dr. Jane Rhodes, Dean for the study of Race and Ethnicity at Macalaster College in St. Paul, Minn.

"It is not enough to be intolerant of someone or dislike them, you need the ability to oppress them or control them by denying them housing or employment," said Rhodes.

However, she explained that the more popular definition of racism has evolved to include what was traditionally referred to as prejudice.

Many people were taught a simple equation to define racism, Prejudice + Power = Racism. However, Rhodes said that there are times when a minority could take racist action against a white person.

"The chances of that occurring against a white person is very small. But I won't take the step to say that it's impossible," she explained.

For example, if a white person had a black employer who demoted him because the employer hated white people, Rhodes said she probably wouldn't consider that racist.

"In a classical sense, you were the victim of racial discrimination, while not necessarily racism," she said.

But that opinion is not universally held and there are many who feel otherwise.

"There are minorities that can be racist against other minorities - just because they are minority groups does not make their beliefs or actions more or less racist than those of a majority group," wrote Peter Gawtry on WCCO.com.

Erica M. disagreed, writing, "People in the minority (e.g., people who are not in the privileged/empowered class) can absolutely be prejudiced, but they do not have the "system" to work to their advantage the way it does for the privileged class. So there is no such thing as reverse racism."

Rhodes said she agrees that there is no such thing as "reverse racism," arguing that there are very isolated circumstances where minorities can be racist. For example, if a minority were a high-level executive at a company and set a policy in place that actively discriminated against another racial group, that would be considered racism because of the power play.

Also, "white people could be the victim of hatred, could be the victim of hate crime," said Rhodes.

Indeed, FBI crime stats show around 20 percent of the victims of prosecuted hate crimes are white. But most sociologists think of racism as bigger than prejudice or hate.

And it's not a situation that's likely to change anytime soon, even as demographics shift and more communities have a majority population of minority residents. The societal "power" or "privilege" held by whites has nothing to do with population or economic power today.

"It's not only economic privilege. You have privilege by the color of your skin," she said. "One of the things that economists have demonstrated is that racial privilege for whites is accrued over many, many generations."

She noted that many thought we were entering a "post-racial era" that after the election of a black president.

"The reality is, it's still there. It still shapes our lives. So there's this real tension between the reality and what we'd like. People are sort of ahead of themselves. We'd like it to be different but it's not yet," said Rhodes.

(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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