No, and this is precisely the problem that she, Derec, and many others simply do not understand, or refuse to accept. One does not have to be wearing a hood and burning crosses in some poor family's front yard to be a racist. We are all racist to some degree,
Except black people, who can't be racist by definition, according to the Left.
and put simply, some of us are more open-minded and introspective or possess more empathy in order to realize it.
That is the kind of self-flagellating attitude that is very common among very devout religious believers. Everybody is sinner (Christianity), everybody (at least all white people) are racist (left wing pseudoreligion).
Also, and I think this cannot be overstated, one doesn't have to feel a burning hatred in their heart for non-whites as a white person, in order to be identified as a racist.
You are right, to be
identified as racist (as opposed to actually being racist), one merely has to hold non-PC opinions. There was a "study" a few years ago that purported to show that well-educated whites were just as "racist" as our less well educated brethren. How did they measure racism? By asking people what they thought about policies such as "affirmative action". If you disagreed with study authors, you were labeled as "racist", as simple as that.
On the other hand, if one is black, one can have burning hatred against whites and still not be identified as racist, because of the double standard.
Take F. Keith Slaughter. He is an overt and outspoken racist. He also has a radio show on a small black radio station (WAOK 1380) here owned by CBS. He regularly uses racist slurs against white people including one he invented himself ("refrigerators"). And yet, CBS has not fired him. Because it's ok to be racist as long as you are black.
Here he is with well-known racist Louis Farrakhan, who largely gets away with his racism.
If you feel righteously indignant anger for being accused of racism to the degree that you are always busy defending your behavior you will not see your own racism or your own privilege.
If you are accused, you are automatically guilty, especially if you deny it...
<Personal reference to another board member removed--staff edit> Of course, various other people of color were raised in their society as a subsection of ours, and instead of acknowledging that, they expect people of color to think, act and behave as if they were raised in ours alone. They fail to understand that these expectations are the very definition of racism. It denies people of color their own experiences and invalidates that lived experience.
Huh? I am not invalidating anybody's experience. But why should my experience be invalidated? When a white person and black person have a different opinion about race and racial relations, why is the black person's experience automatically assumed to be the correct one? Why are white people accused of racism whenever we have an opinion of race that in any way deviates from self-flaggelation?
I refuse to self-flagellate myself for something done centuries ago by people who kinda-sorta looked like me. Such collective assigning of guilt based solely on skin color is the very root of racism, not an antidote.
Some of us realize that we as white people benefit from a society with pre-baked views like that, even if we don't support it.
How am I benefiting from it? Concretely. Like, if I apply to a college, do I get extra points for being white? No, quite the opposite. If I am a deputy in Clayton County, GA, do I get promoted easier because I am white? No, I get fired along with all other white deputies because a racist black sheriff got elected. And so on.
Even if we had no hand in creating it. Yet, if we want to change, if we want an even playing field for all, we have to admit to these things. Acknowledging that is difficult. To believe that your life's circumstances are due entirely to your own good or bad choices in that life when the largest determination of success is how wealthy your parents were is absurd. We live in a society where wealth trickles down through families over time. This is simply undeniable. Exceptions only prove the rule here. The fact that people of color were severely denied opportunity, housing and wealth in the past is also undeniable. Yet, many white people expect people of color to pull hard on those bootstraps and not acknowledge that those terrible past acts currently affect the present, in both social attitudes and concrete accumulated wealth. They have blinders on while they insist that everyone else is just making these concepts up because they literally like to feel guilty. It would be comical if it didn't perpetuate so much damage.
The solution to racism is to not treat people differently based on race. To perpetuate racist attitudes (this time against whites) as some sort of "payback" is not going to solve anything.
