re: #389 EPR-radar

Institutionalized racism should be treated with contempt. That helps with the essential project of getting rid of it.

Whites who are in denial about the enormous part that institutionalized racism has played in US history really need to get their heads out of their asses.

I read something the other day, in an FB post one of my family shared. It said that white fears of racism make it harder to fight racism. The words ‘racism’ and ‘racist’ have become so toxic, and it’s too important to white people to deny any hint of racism that they can’t look at their own feelings and reactions honestly, so they can’t deal with them.

Boy, is that true! I was having a conversation on FB with my Wingnut Cousin and a friend of his, about racism. I confessed that because of being raised as what I call ‘Whitey McWhiteGuy, in Whitesville, Whitesylvania’, I experience more anxiety encountering, for example, a young black man on the street than I would an otherwise identical young black man. I said we all pretty much have these feelings.

One of them said, “You’re saying all white people are racist!” This WOULD HAVE BEEN an opening to say, “No, that’s just an emotional reaction, but you have to ACKNOWLEDGE IT before you can choose not to respond from it”

That’s what I WOULD HAVE said. But my Idiot Brother chimed in. “Yes, all white people are a little racist” he said. And immediately the door slammed shut. He’d called them racists, and that was the end of the productive conversation. (this is part of why I call him my Idiot Brother - he’s too in love with turns of phrase).

The words ‘racism’ and ‘racist’ are conversation killers because we if we own up to the feelings, we can’t ever say “There’s not a racist bone in my body!” or “I’m the least racist person you’ll ever meet!”