Thread by @MurielVieux

The Heritage of Racism

Most Americans if you ask them will tell you they are not racist, they have black friends, they do not use the N word, etc.… etc.…

And the thing is, they really believe it, which is part of the problem, because we’ve been taught that racism is something obvious and, in your face, but there is more to racism than the N word.

Overt racism is easy to spot and frankly easier to deal with, society shames the obvert racist, and they are fired, or shunned and everyone knows who and what they are. It’s the racism that is unconscious and subtle that is the problem.

Subtle racism is not so easy to spot, the racist knows they are racist but takes steps to conceal it and their motives making it harder to detect.

It is deliberately passing someone over for promotion because they are a POC for example or saying things like “do they all have the same father” to a mother of color.

That type of racism gets under your skin as a POC and itches, but you cannot scratch it because people think you are just being too sensitive, that you’re playing the race card, or being a martyr. The irony is that this dismissive attitude leads us into the 3rd kind of racism.

The unconscious racist is the most common one, it’s the racist that does not know he/she is racist. There are people out there marching in BLM protest that are racist. There are people out there promoting policies for POC’s that are racist. But they do not know it.

Contrary to what many believe, racism does not have to be intentional to be racism. That is where systemic racism comes into play. It is something that is so normal to them, inbred, innate, that they can not see it as racism because they are not consciously doing anything.

It is the teacher that grades a child of color’s tests more harshly because they instinctively assume that the colored child will make more mistakes, so they look harder. It is a certain tone that is adopted when talking to POC as if they were talking to a child.

It is crossing the streets without even thinking about it when a group of black teens is on the same side. It’s having to have a black history month because schoolbooks do not include black history as American History.

Black history month started in 1926! and to this day black history has not been incorporated into the history books taught in school. Keeping it separate from the “real American history”.

It’s the surprised tone that your black or brown friend lives in a nice house or has read the classics and other things that would not shock you in your white friends. It’s also the lack of comprehension about things like “Aunt Jemima”

It’s thinking that slavery was so long ago why can’t we just let it go. Slavery is the history of racism, but racism also has a legacy, that legacy is alive and thriving in all aspects of a POC’s life, through the everyday actions and reactions of white peoples lives.

Most interactions with POC are riddled with unconscious bias and racism, and most of it is from well-meaning people who do not know they are racists.

Muriel Vieux
February 21th, 2021
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