What is all this racism talk? I'm not a racist. I don't hate anybody. That is what I would have told myself a few years ago. Yes, I was aware that there was some discrimination going on in housing, loans, jobs. I am opposed to discrimination. There have been some changes made, right?
Then a friend talked to me about implicit bias. He challenged me to go online and take a simple test. (https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html). I took the challenge. I was shocked by the results. I have since come to better understand what a racist culture we swim in.
I hear people say the answer is just to have your heart in the right place and love Jesus, everything will be fine. I am convinced that most of us paler people don't have a heart problem. We for the most part want there to be equality of opportunity. But we haven't faced those signals we've taken in all these years.
In our culture, there is no non-racist position. We're either an anti-racist, working for changes that produce quality and opportunity, or we are ignoring what is going on around us.
Our darker brothers and sisters have been letting us know for a long time about what is happening to them but we have too often written it off and tried to speak for them.
This country is run by white people for the most part, from board rooms to politicians, from managers to bankers and police, most of us unaware of the unconscious bias we carry. We have a white problem in America, not a black problem. It is on us to fix it.
