I’ve been thinking a lot about a lot of things in the US (as is pretty much everyone) and one thing I keep coming back to is what is racism. Where does it exist? Why does it exist?

All simultaneously simple and complex questions. I keep coming back to something that is in..

1/?
the book “So You Want to Talk about Race” by @IjeomaOluo. Many white folx are more upset by the idea that someone would accuse them of doing something racist and fighting that, than taking the time to analyze and listen why that may be said about them.

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Because of how civil rights has been taught in this country, it is assumed that to b racist, one must actively hate & be bent on another’s destruction because of the color of their skin. Many see the images of the KKK in the past and say “I would never HATE someone like that”
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Therefore I cannot be racist.

Now before I go further. That kind of overt anger driven racism exists and still even thrives in many places.

But that is not where racism ends. When you are raised in a country that was built on slavery, discrimination, and oppression of POC
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The echoes of that (through culture, legislation etc) ring on through our history.

As a white presenting person I have benefited a lot from the history of our country. I also have bias that I have to confront everyday, because of how POC have been portrayed in media, how...

5/
Friends and family have spoken (largely through ignorance), how the conservative values I was raised on treated poverty as a consequence of personal choice and action, and the subtle ways it has been implied (and sometimes explicitly)in media than POC have values that are harmful
To the direction of the country.

All of these combine to create internal structures of racism, particularly in white folx.

And so if we really want to move forward as a country, find unity etc, it CANNOT happen until white folx, especially those in power take the time to...
Deeply examine the internal structures that create and contribute to racism. Because if you were raised in a racist culture, you are racist and have to confront that to ever move past that.

And when someone says “that’s racist” or “that’s privileged” we have to stop and examine
Where that came from. Why our actions might ACTUALLY be racist.

Then we can truly start moving forward.

BC racism is an inherent and real part of our culture, our laws, our infrastructures, and our history. It will continue to infect us if we don’t really face it head on.
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