If you have trouble as a white person understanding the perspective of a person of color, consider this:
As parents, we try to teach both our sons and daughters about being safe. Lock your doors, when you go out be aware of your surroundings, try not to walk alone, especially after dark. But even as we tell our daughters they have the same rights and can do anything that boys do, we still tell our daughters these things with extra urgency, and even add a few more things for them to do – don’t leave your drink unattended, don’t drink too much, don’t go into a room alone with guys you don’t know – carry pepper spray.
If boys and girls truly have the same rights and our society is supposed to, in theory, treat them the same, then why are we as parents still so much more worried about our daughters and thus teach them differently about how to interact with the world?Because we know from experience and in our bones that the world is more dangerous for our daughters. We wish it weren’t true – but it just is. Because of systemic sexism and misogyny that, although much less than it was in the past for ourselves and our mothers and grandmothers, still hasn’t been completely eradicated.
Now – take that worry you have for your daughter (or granddaughter, sister, step-daughter, niece, close friend, wife, or whoever) in certain situations and multiply it by thousands, and by tens of thousands of more situations, and you get a better idea of how people of color often have to approach the world and teach their own children to approach the world, simply because of how the world can too often treat them. People of color are not asking for you to apologize for this – they simply want you to acknowledge it and understand why they would like things to finally change in a meaningful and lasting way, & they ask your help in making that happen.
So if your first “go to” in discussions about race is to get defensive and start insisting how you are not a racist, and citing your “non-racist resume” about how many people of color you know or have helped, you need to stop and take a breath. Realize and accept, without defensiveness, that it’s not about you. Instead it’s about recognizing, communicating, and fixing the systemic attitudes and structures that have impeded true and meaningful change for people of color (even those you know and love) thus far, and doing what you can in your own corner of the world to bring about that meaningful and lasting change – that actually sticks this time.
Implicit bias is not about character – it’s about consciousness.
Implicit Bias Is Not About Character – It’s About Consciousness
