Recently I witnessed an argument on campus between a Mexican student and a white staff member. “Children in Mexico don’t have free education like children in America,” the staff member said. “You should know this and you should appreciate what you have in this country.”

The student replied with, “Are you saying this because I’m Mexican?”
The white staff member immediately seemed to become defensive. “I only said that because that’s the country nearest to us,” they said. “If you said something about white people, would that mean that you’re being racist towards me?”

Does this white person in this society really think that they could be targeted and discriminated against? Do they really think they too can be a victim of racism? Newsflash. They can’t.

Racism is based on marginalization, oppression and the disadvantages rooted from race. It is most widely known to enforce power and privilege on another race through several means. Yeah, people of color can be prejudiced. However, a person of color cannot be racist to somebody white for the sole reason that they don’t benefit from such a system because they lack the privilege and the power.

Usually when reverse racism is brought up it is somebody of the dominant group with the most privilege justifying their lack of accomplishment. Sure, a person of color might have several prejudices against white people, but at the end of the day they cannot oppress them in a systematic way.
White people overall do not have to fear losing out on a job because of their race, nor are they generally in danger of comments and slurs being thrown at them.
They do not face any institutionalized racism, such as struggling to receive quality health care or finding stable employment. White people, on the other hand, have such easy access to education, employment, healthcare, and even things like beauty standards. Somebody can not just reverse this.
You cannot just reverse power. You cannot reverse privilege. But most importantly, you cannot reverse racism.