My primary purpose here is to call attention to a recent article on the unconscious racism that infects nearly all us white Americans, even, as I suggested in an earlier diary, the most well-intentioned among us.
But before I refer you to the article, I feel compelled to add one minor quibble. I think the article rather naively underestimates the extent and power of overt, willful racism among us. How else except as willful, conscious racism do we account for the behavior of Prosecutor Bob McCulloch in his refusal to recuse himself in the Darren Wilson hearing and his obvious contempt for the community of Ferguson, the eyewitnesses to the Michael Brown shooting, the media, and the jury? How else do we account for the obviously inconsistent behavior of the Ferguson and St Louis County police when they showed up in force for a primarily non-violent protest after the killing of Michael Brown in August, but were nowhere to be found when the heavily armed, white supremacist Oathkeepers arrived in Ferguson? And how else do we account for the mainstream media’s willful blindness in not reporting this inconsistency?
In spite of this one quibble, I strongly urge you to read the long, but excellent and thought-provoking article linked below. It explores the nature of unconscious racism, discusses in detail tests for revealing and measuring it, and even offers some tools for helping to overcome it.
NOTE: As I was working on this diary, I took a break to read my e-mail and found a link to another very provocative and interesting article related to Ferguson and our country’s history of racism. This article discusses the criminalization of jaywalking and raises the question “Who owns the streets?” I highly recommend this article as well.