If nobody is born racist, at what point did you learn that another human being deserved your hatred because of their race, and have you ever stopped to ask yourself why you kept believing it?
Maybe you’ll say, “That’s how I was raised.”
Okay. But you’re grown now. You’ve questioned and changed plenty of things you were taught as a child. Why is racism the lesson you decided to keep?
Maybe you had a bad experience with someone of another race.
Okay. But why did one person’s behavior become evidence against millions of strangers? When someone from your own race treats you badly, do you blame your entire race for what that person did?
Maybe you’ll point to crime statistics.
Okay. But statistics about a population cannot tell you the character, intentions, or worth of the individual standing in front of you. Human beings are not statistics.
Maybe you’ll say, “It’s their culture.”
Whose culture? Millions of people with different families, beliefs, incomes, educations, personalities, neighborhoods, and life experiences? Which one culture are you talking about?
Maybe you’ll say, “They hate us too.”
Who is “they”? Did an entire race personally tell you that? Or did you encounter hateful people and decide everyone who shares their skin color must think exactly like them?
Maybe your parents taught you.
That can explain where the racism started. It doesn’t explain why you continue it.
At some point, you became old enough to question what you were taught. At some point, inherited prejudice became something you were choosing to carry.
So forget defending it for a minute.
Ask yourself where it came from.
Fear? Anger? Resentment? Something you were taught? A bad experience? A need to feel superior to somebody else?
You can explain where your racism came from.
But once you became old enough to know better, what’s your explanation for continuing to feed it?
