But wait, allow me to explain myself.
I am totally on board with the principle that all human beings, regardless of race, are capable of thinking and feeling and intelligence, and are deserving of equal rights. I'm half-Chinese with white skin and I always saw how I was treated differently from my mother and my sister, who both have darker skin than I do. I grew up in Toronto (I'm still there) with Asian people, white people, South-Asian people, black people and saw that their race had nothing to do with what kind of person they were. My beliefs are not racist. In theory.
None of this has prevented me from an unfounded distrust of black people. I have friends who are black, but I notice that I'm not nearly as friendly to them as I am to friends of other races who are just as friendly to me as my black friends. I feel myself forcing me to be open and friendly when, say, I end up in a casual conversation with a black guy at the corner store. I feel myself get uptight when a black person sits next to me on the bus. None of this is fair, but it's what I feel, not what I ought to.
I don't buy it, when people say "I am NOT racist at all, I think racism is stupid, we're all equal." Of course they believe that; any decent person believes in equality. But believing something and acting it are different things. It's hard to examine our feelings at every moment, but even if you believe (and I hope you'll pardon my colloquial use of "you" if you're already aware of all this) even if you believe in racial equality, I'm betting you react differently to people of an "other" race, in any particular situation. Maybe it's not always because of race. But be honest, a lot of the time it is.
I am totally on board with the principle that all human beings, regardless of race, are capable of thinking and feeling and intelligence, and are deserving of equal rights. I'm half-Chinese with white skin and I always saw how I was treated differently from my mother and my sister, who both have darker skin than I do. I grew up in Toronto (I'm still there) with Asian people, white people, South-Asian people, black people and saw that their race had nothing to do with what kind of person they were. My beliefs are not racist. In theory.
None of this has prevented me from an unfounded distrust of black people. I have friends who are black, but I notice that I'm not nearly as friendly to them as I am to friends of other races who are just as friendly to me as my black friends. I feel myself forcing me to be open and friendly when, say, I end up in a casual conversation with a black guy at the corner store. I feel myself get uptight when a black person sits next to me on the bus. None of this is fair, but it's what I feel, not what I ought to.
I'd like to clarify that the black people I find myself around are typically not "gangster-types." They're just ordinary people that you'd find around the neighbourhood.
I don't buy it, when people say "I am NOT racist at all, I think racism is stupid, we're all equal." Of course they believe that; any decent person believes in equality. But believing something and acting it are different things. It's hard to examine our feelings at every moment, but even if you believe (and I hope you'll pardon my colloquial use of "you" if you're already aware of all this) even if you believe in racial equality, I'm betting you react differently to people of an "other" race, in any particular situation. Maybe it's not always because of race. But be honest, a lot of the time it is.
Well now you're just getting into semantics.
