In
wclathe's diary a few days ago I posted a very long comment near the end saying that St. Louis was a racist town. I apologize if anyone was offended. My husband has experienced diversity training at what we consider to be a highly non-racist workplace and confirms that you should never call a person a racist directly, much less an entire city or even yourself. I notice that MLK did not use this sort of language but kept the focus on the positive things which he and his followers wanted to accomplish, even when the situation was very difficult. As shanikka and AlisoninSeattle pointed out, racial mistrust can be highly justified and not come up to the level of racism, where you believe the group you mistrust is naturally inferior to you. (This came up when my husband asked me if I had been troll-rated lately and I said, "I was surprised I was not troll-rated for this one comment.")