
Being a racist doesn’t mean you’re a bad person.
What?? Hear me out-
We’ve come to believe that a racist is
1. An individual
2. Who consciously doesn’t like people based on race
3. & who intentionally seeks to be mean to them.
By this definition, when someone points out that something was racist, we interpret it to mean we’re a bad person. Then, obviously, we start to defend ourselves.
This makes it it nearly impossible to look at ourselves and see anything racist about our past, because most of our biases are unconscious.
Paraphrased from Robin DiAngelo.