Hiding Our Racism From Ourselves

 SHE WAS RAISED, SHE SAYS, to not date black guys. She believes, or wants to believe, that Michelle Obama is a man, or used to be, that Barack Obama was born in Africa, and that the Black Lives Matter Protesters are "anarchists". her entire life she voted Democratic, until 2008. Obama comes along, no more Democratic vote. And yet, by damn, she aint no racist. I tried to help by suggesting that she look up the word "anarchist". Her racism she unwittingly revealed by what she didn't say. Her being raised a racist didn't faze her. Just the way it was, and is. No complaints. Someone is responsible for her refusal to date black men. Its not her fault, her refusal. What she omitted mentioning is that she was raised wrong, raised by racists, that adulthood is our opportunity to transcend the mistakes of our parents, that there's nothing wrong with dating African-American gentlemen, and, by damn, she will date anyone she pleases. Modern racists are careful to disguise their racism, careful to hide it from a society increasingly disapproving of it with each passing year. So ashamed are our modern racists of their deeply hidden racism that they often conceal it, it seems, from themselves. In my childhood in the nineteen sixties racism was so prevalent that it was considered perfectly normal, widely accepted. Then seeing racism was like standing on the ocean floor and seeing water. Back then, open displays of racism were considered acceptable within the while community. My uncle visited our family in the south, he from Minnesota, and said that we all talked like niggers. We laughed uncaringly. But things have changed, and today's racists have invented all kinds of clever code words to subtly signal their racist attitudes. Trump's chief immigration adviser , Mr. Miller, a lifelong white supremacist racist, uses words like "national security" and "suburban restructuring" to signal his opposition to dark skinned people encroaching on white America. Those damned new zoning laws, mandating low income housing in middle class white neighborhoods, and the baleful influence they bring. As white Americans assume minority status due to demographic evolution,racism raises its ugly head, and then is presented in disguise to avoid arousing the ire of majority non racist America.In order to continue the fight against systemic and other forms of racism, it is necessary for good people to confront it directly, no matter what form it cleverly assumes.