And still I object. Most white people today abhor their own racism. They deny it, hide from it, try to obscure it. Unless they're a self-identified white supremacist, they certainly don't own it. For many, even the possibility is too awful to contemplate. Most of us (I want to be clear that I'm including myself in this) don't want to be the oppressor. And yet, sometimes, that's exactly what we are. And in those times, in all those elevator moments, we victimize others by our actions. But even as we grab our purses or cross the street, we are ourselves victims of our country's racist history and our own racist socialization.
I'm not trying to justify the purse grab or any other racist act, nor do I want to equate the harmful impact of those who perpetrate racism to those who are targeted by it. Rather, I want to make the point that racism in general (and certainly the purse grab) exists because all of us continue to be socialized into a racially biased society and our social systems (e.g., media, schools) continue to support what psychologists and other social scientists have labeled as aversive or modern racism (it is certainly a sign of some progress that they no longer support explicit racism).
At the end of the day, if we're going to have a racially just society, it's going to happen through the combined efforts of Black men and White women, and men and women of all other racial groups, not through the shaming and humiliation of the oppressor. Call me naive, but in the words of Marshall Rosenberg, I want to live in a world where everyone's needs matter, not in one where we substitute one type of oppression for another.
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