Acting White: Gallup Poll Says Americans Believe Racism is Widespread

This country has intelligent people, ignorant people, and everyone in between. So should we really be surprised that racism is widespread? Gallup should also add that racism seems not to be going anywhere anytime soon, as the grip of ignorance is strong. So now what?

We need to examine racism under a modified light, and this won’t be easy. Racism always has an agenda, but is it always evil? Sure, it can seek to unfairly promote some while demoting others. But it can also be a defense. What? If I fear I might get stomped by someone, I might avoid them. The only agenda here is self defense. Should I risk life and limb to prove to Mr. Gallup that I am not a racist? I think not.

The real problem is that it is easy to see problems through the lens of race. So it looks like race is the cause, while it is not. The state of a person’s ignorance is influenced by a myriad of background factors, including economics, education, employment, and culture. But what we see on the tube is behavior and race. Viola, race must be driving it. Wrong.

Before we ever get past race issues we must get to the whole of them. To do this we must quell our knee jerk reaction that racism is always malicious. This is simply not true. Sometimes it is just a natural short-cut defense that is philosophically wrong, but practically prudent. It’s like choosing sides in pick-up basketball. All things being equal, the wise choice is the black guy in the Air Jordan’s. The NBA is >80% black (if you haven’t noticed) – philosophically wrong, maybe, but practically the best bet, if winning is the goal.

So when we hear about widespread racism, it would be great if we could recognize and begin to talk about the behaviors, on all sides, that aren’t about being malicious, but which are concerned with avoiding difficulty, as well as getting ahead. This is the elephant in the living room that we do not see, or hear of in national polls, or television network specials on race.

James C. Collier

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