African American

It's evolution. We've developed instincts to fear, "the other/different." I'm sure everyone will privately admit to thinking something along the lines of, "Well, if those Black kids would pull their pants up," or, "Wow, that Mexican plays his music loud," or "Man, White people just can't dance," etc. Even telling a story about something frustrating that happened to you earlier in the day can be racist. I recently posted a funny story on FB about having a problem ordering in a Chinese restaurant, but I started to but eventually didn't say it was a Chinese restaurant because I realized that had no bearing on the story and doing so would be mean. The person who was taking my order was a teenage son of the owners, born in America, spoke perfect English, but he was just confused on how the specials worked. If I had mentioned he was Chinese, it would have taken away from the humor of the story, and some of my more asshole-racist, Trump-supporting family members would take away the wrong message.

The racism is always there. It's how we overcome it that matters. We need to fight against the overt, in-your-face racism and for the "big issues" - equal treatment under the law, voter rights, stopping police brutality, etc, but it's also catching yourself in those private moments when you think something but then tell yourself, "That's not being fair. You need to deal with people on an individual basis and not categorize."

TlalocW