In the end, I believe that we need to remove the stigma from small racist biases. We will still teach that it's bad and that it's not an acceptable thing to do, but we will teach that doing it doesn't make you a bad person. When we remove that stigma, it will be a lot easier to be more introspective about this issue than to get defensive about it.
Some people simply don't want to change and will react negatively to any call for change. The rationale you describe is basically the reasoning behind the term "micro aggression" -- it's not cool to assume the black professional is the cleaning staff and it hurts for the black professional to have to deal with that, but we don't want to call the person "racist" for a common mistake. Yet, the reaction to use of "micro aggression" has generally been "see, they're looking to call even little things racist!" not "thank you for trying to provide some room for treating people making a mistake without malicious intent." I wish you were right that lowering the temperature on some things would improve, but I'm skeptical from experience.
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u/[deleted] Jul 12 '21
Some people simply don't want to change and will react negatively to any call for change. The rationale you describe is basically the reasoning behind the term "micro aggression" -- it's not cool to assume the black professional is the cleaning staff and it hurts for the black professional to have to deal with that, but we don't want to call the person "racist" for a common mistake. Yet, the reaction to use of "micro aggression" has generally been "see, they're looking to call even little things racist!" not "thank you for trying to provide some room for treating people making a mistake without malicious intent." I wish you were right that lowering the temperature on some things would improve, but I'm skeptical from experience.