Something I should say more often

[oskar]

The only ones excluded from an anti-racism movement are, you know, racists.

[MadMojoMonkey]

The only ones excluded from an anti-racism movement are, you know, racists.

This is poor language to use.

My preface:
Everyone is born a racist. Children in pre-school separate into racial groups by age 3. It's not malicious, there's no hate or competition between the groups. Children of all peoples seek familiar interactions and familiar situations. So they naturally group up with other children who look like their own families.

Then over time, these groups further consolidate, and feed the notion that there is identity in these groups.

When people become teenagers, and their struggle for identity becomes a dominant part of their personal growth. It's easy to fall into a trap of finding identity in things they did not choose to be. Racial tensions in mixed race schools starts on the playgrounds in grade school or middle school, but it doesn't tend to elevate to real race violence until middle school or high school.


A huge problem with addressing racism are the lies that "racism is a choice" or "racism is only a thing that affects haters."

Every one of us was born with the human desire to have familiar surroundings, predictability. It takes an intellectual choice to disavow judging people by things they cannot choose about themselves.


And so we get to my point:
Most racism is accidental. I've said and done a lot of racist things. I've never incited violence, or consciously thought I was being racist, but accidental racism is very real. The wrong thing to do if you've been accidentally insensitive is to double down on the fact that it was an accident and insist that it should be excused. That is not acknowledging your mistake and learning from it. Or at least, it isn't likely for you to accept that what you did was a mistake, and all that you need do to fix it is apologize and learn from it by listening to the reasons why it was a mistake and understanding those reasons.