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Why Good People Do Racist Things
The chronic disease of unconscious bias
“You realize that the number of people who are actually racist is small. Most of us don’t care what color people are.”
This is a common refrain I hear from many white people. It’s been repeated to me by conservatives and liberals alike.
I don’t agree with this statistical sentiment, especially after what we’ve witnessed this past decade, but what it highlights is that people who don’t consciously hate people based on skin color, ethnicity and the like think that racism is relegated to hate groups and avowed racists. That racism isn’t the norm; it’s the exception.
For now, we’ll set aside what percentage of Americans are consciously racist, but I do agree that there are millions of white Americans who don’t go around with feelings of hate in their hearts.
So we’re going to focus on them. On us. The people out there trying to do the right thing but who still come up short sometimes.
Regardless of our skin color, ethnicity, upbringing or economic status, our minds have all been exposed to essentially the same things in America.
Our fictional superheroes were mostly white men. Superman. Batman. Spiderman. It wasn’t until 2018 we had one blockbuster Black superhero. The Black Panther. 2018.
The impact of this is that white kids and adults learn that heroes come in white. And Black kids learn the same thing, which has the capacity to impact self-esteem.
Our scientific-STEM heroes. Benjamin Franklin. Thomas Edison. Alexander Graham Bell. Nikola Tesla. Albert Einstein. More white men, which has the similar unconscious effect of teaching one idea about white people and another about Black people. There’s a psychological consequence of not learning about Black inventors and scientists.
Generations were taught that white skin with blonde, straight hair was considered beautiful, but Black wasn’t. In dolls. Movies. And now on social media. All teaching white girls about their beauty and Black girls that they lacked beauty.
The continent of Africa has for decades been depicted on most world maps as far smaller than it actually is in proportion to the rest of the…
