The First Step to Recovery

I work at a school with 105 students. 103 of these students are African-American and 2 are white. The demographics of the surrounding neighborhood are similar and my wife and I have chosen to live in a neighborhood with similar racial demographics. In this environment the saying: "don't judge a person until you walk a mile in their shoes" has taken on new meaning for me. I have become the racial minority in my community. I feel my skin color every time I walk outside. I wonder how the people walking and driving down my street think about my skin color. I hope that they don't judge me based on their previous experiences with people of my similar hue. My skin color, its cultural meaning and its practical ramifications in my community are never far from my mind. This experience has challenged me to think about, talk about and study race, racism and race relations.

Depending on your perspective you might think this is odd in a "post-racial society." With the ascent of President Obama we have heard a lot about the end of racism. The most common phrase I hear when I talk to white Americans that are not engaged in race relations is: "I'm not racist." Now, I'm not going to present an argument for the position that our society is profoundly racist (although I believe it is and may attempt this in the future). However, I think we do ourselves and our communities a disservice by pretending that we are not prejudiced or biased. It is impossible not to be biased, in some way, toward almost everything. It might be argued that the highest form of injustice is the refusal to recognize injustice in the first place. I believe that it is time for us to stop pretending, admit our prejudices and work together to break them down and eliminate them. Elimination of prejudice is the goal that will never be achieved because of human nature but it is the goal nonetheless. I would like to challenge you to reflect personally and honestly about your beliefs and feelings, conscious and subconscious, about people with a different racial heritage than your own.

To encourage you to reflect honestly I would like to admit that I am racist. As our recovering friends tell us, the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. I know that our society and my position in it has taught be some profoundly racist attitudes. I also know that this is no excuse for inexcusable behavior. No matter where my beliefs and attitudes come from they are still mine and I must own them and deal with them in a morally, ethically, and socially responsible way. The problem is that I can't deal with the problem if I am unwilling to recognize it, admit it and address it. This is why conflict of interest policies and judicial recusal policies exist at every level of society. The purpose is to identify bias and prejudice and take steps to reduce or eliminate its impact on ourselves and our communities.

Harvard University has an ongoing project that seeks to identify subconscious attitudes in many areas including race. I completed the race test and received the following result:

"Your data suggest a moderate automatic preference for European American compared to African American."

Here is the breakdown of how all respondents scored:












I don't want to imply that these tests are perfect but they are challenging and may help you to think and identify attitudes and feelings that you may not have realized were there.

Here is the link to Harvard University's Project Implicit. Go to the demonstration tests and choose a category to test yourself on. I would suggest race.