Basically, racial bias is a belief. Racism is what happens when that belief translates into action. For example, a person might unconsciously or consciously believe that people of color are more likely to commit crime or be dangerous. That’s a bias. A person might become anxious if they perceive a black person is angry. That stems from a bias. These biases can become racism through a number of actions ranging in severity, and ranging from individual- to group-level responses... SOURCE: Tolerance.org, author Cory Collins
SO...
according to Cory Collins, it is ok for a white person to be biased... as long as this white person does not put that bias into action like walking to the other side of the street avoid a group of black people because this white person has a bias that black people are dangerous...
BUT...
Cory Collins does not take into consideration the circumstances that caused this white person to exercise his bias... such as the white person being retired or handicapped and that this same action would have been taken if there was a group of people were white. It also does not take into consideration, the time of day or if this group of black people are young, old, or middle aged or how they might have been dressed... it also does not take into consideration if this white person crossing the street is male or female... nor does it take into consideration their religious beliefs or any previous encounters like this where the outcomes were less than positive...
THEREFORE...
all biased action is not necessarily an indication of racism... and yet... the BLACKS think that it is...
HOWEVER,
this still does not explain to me how to get rid of my whiteness or what whiteness is exactly... I am assuming that whiteness is another word for white privilege. And, I can assure you that not all white person were born into the ranks of white privilege... for that guarantee, you need to check out the students who are attending the IVY LEAGUE colleges and universities.
The average white person, male or female, typically works for someone else and is considered labor not management. And if, this average white person is labor, then the odds are that they were raised no where near the concepts of white privilege. Even those in management are not always from the ranks of white privilege, even though they have ended up as managers of retail stores, manufacturing plants, restaurants, hotels, motels, and resorts... I would suspect that they, over the years, worked their way up through the ranks.
ALSO...
and I remember this quite vividly that when my Dad worked for the Federal Government in the Department of Agriculture, he was FORCED to hire a certain PERCENTAGE of BLACKS whether they were qualified or not and the employment security of his position was dependent upon how well these unqualified employees performed...
White privilege or not... that was not fair to him... but, the government thought it was fair to the BLACKS...
Is this how the government is going to help us REMOVE OUR WHITENESS....
How do you suppose that our government is going to help the Blacks remove their BLACKNESS and the chip on their shoulders because of slavery that was perpetrated on their ancestors over 200 years ago?
If WHITENESS needs to go so too does BLACKNESS need to go...
I mean we are talking about EQUALITY... right?
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