Our, American Racism 101’s, first discussion begins with my working definition of “Recognizing Racism.” This definition is followed by twelve sample situations as “evidence” of the continuing presence and good health of racism in American society today.
Please read, reflect and respond to any/all of the examples in the LEAVE YOUR COMMENT link (below this post) with a suggested solution about what we as individuals can do to eradicate these behaviors and, in time, attitudes. Feel free to add one or two additional concrete example from your own experience, as well, for possible inclusion in next week’s post.

We have begun!

The ability to discern the presence of negative racial stereotyping and its response/reaction and relevance to the current situation presenting itself.
Recognizing Racism

Concrete Sample Situations
So how do you recognize Racism?

These are a few of my clues to racism yesterday, today, and tomorrow …

1. If you have ever been called or referred to by members of other racial groups with ethnic slurs and/or name calling. That’s racism.

 

2. If you’ve trained a white person for a higher paying, more prestigious position, doing the same job you do, and/but you have never gotten promoted or received the same raise. That’s racism.

 

3. If you are in a line and a white person speaks up behind you and gets
   service first or, just walks up to the counter in front of you and starts talking as if you aren’t there, (“invisible,”) never apologizing or explaining the rudeness and, they are helped first without explanation or apology. That’s double racism.

 

4. When you are the last to be served in a store or even have to ask for help because you are (“invisible”) and every other “white customer” is greeted at the front door. That’s racism.

 

5. When the teacher never calls on you or any of your Black friends/students when your hand is raised in class. That’s racism.

 

6. If a white man, woman, or child accuses you of a crime, and you are automatically presumed and treated as guilty, even if you are never arrested, and never charged. That’s racism.

 

7. If your interest rates are higher than your white equal’s. That’s racism.

 

8. If your Harvard educated, democratically elected, President is racially attacked on his qualifications to be President.  That’s racism.

 

9. If nooses were hung from a tree on a high school campus where you, a Black student had recently sat under. That’s racism.

 

10. If a prominent recognizable NFL player is detained for a traffic ticket in the
    emergency parking lot of a hospital to which he is rushing to, trying to see his dying mother, and this is verified by hospital staff present at the scene. That’s racism.

 

11. If a certified ambulance driver is pulled off the road and detained by “chokehold” for a traffic ticket while his emergency patient inside the ambulance is screaming for help. That’s racism.

 

12. If children who have paid to swim in a club pool are asked to leave after all the white children get out of the pool because they have changed the “complexion” of the pool. That’s racism.

 

TO NAME A FEW . . .
I hope this helps us begin.

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