“I thought I had it all figured out. I thought of racism as an inanimate, immortal system, not as a living, recognizable, mortal disease of cancer cells that we could identify and treat and kill. I considered the system as essential to the United States and the Constitution. At times, I thought White people covertly operated the system, fixed it to benefit the total White community at the expense of the total Black community. The construct of covert institutional racism opens American eyes to racism and, ironically, closes them, too. Separating the overt individual from the covert institutional veils the specific policy choices that cause racial inequities, policies made by specific people. Covering up the specific policies and policymakers prevents us from identifying and replacing the specific policies and policy makers. We become unconscious to racist policymakers and policies as we lash out angrily at the abstract bogeyman of "the system.” PolicyRacismAfrican AmericansBlacksSystemic RacismWhitesInstitutional RacismRacist PoliciesPolicymakersRacist Policymakers Book:How to Be an Antiracist Source: How to Be an Antiracist
“Moral and educational suasion breathes the assumption that racist minds must be changed before racist policy, ignoring history that says otherwise. Look at the soaring White support for desegregated schools and neighborhoods decades after the policies changed in the 1950s and 1960s. Look at the soaring White support for interracial marriage decades after the policy changed in 1967. Look at the soaring support for Obamacare after its passage in 2010. Racist policymakers drum up fear of antiracist policies through racist ideas, knowing if the policies are implemented, the fears they circulate will never come to pass. Once the fears do not come to pass, people will let down their guards as they enjoy the benefits. Once they clearly benefit, most Americans will support and become the defenders of the antiracist policies they once feared.” PolicyRacismAntiracismRacistsRacist PoliciesSuasion Book:How to Be an Antiracist Source: How to Be an Antiracist
“What if we focused our human and fiscal resources on changing power and policy to actually make society, not just our feelings, better?” GovernmentSocietyPolicyActivismAnti Racism Book:How to Be an Antiracist Source: How to Be an Antiracist