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Louis CK addresses this question more concisely than I will be able to here. John Scalzi also explains it using exceedingly nerd-friendly language.

It sounds like you are pretty new to deeply thinking about issues of racism; I commend you for seeking to learn more, and recommend you start with some reading. Why are all the Black kids sitting together in the cafeteria? is a particularly accessible and informative introduction to issues of race and racism in the US. The New Jim Crow is also great, it thoroughly and clearly demonstrates the racism inherent in the current US criminal justice system, and is a great illustration of how contemporary racism is less about individual bigots and more about institutions that systematically oppress people of color.

Here is how I have found it helpful to think about issues of race and racism, as a White person: I think it is easiest to explain using a different form of privilege as an example – being able bodied. I am an able-bodied person, which means I experience the world a certain way. I don’t really notice if any of the doors I go through have a button to automatically open them, or if I have to go up a step to get into a store, or if there’s enough room between tables at a restaurant I’m in for a wheelchair to navigate. I don’t have to notice those things as I go about my business – they aren’t relevant to my life, so why would I? I am operating in a world that was built by people like me for people like me, which means it is very easy for me to live my life in it. But for someone in a wheelchair, all those doors and steps and aisles I blithely walk through actually do present a big problem to their ability to live life as they want. That doesn’t mean it’s my fault, or the fault of other able-bodied people, every time a building doesn’t have a handicapped accessible entrance. For the most part we didn’t build this world, we inherited it. But it does mean that when someone, or a lot of someones, who are differently abled than I am raise an issue as a problem for them, I have a responsibility to listen to them, and trust that they know their own lives and experiences better than I do.

In many ways, being white in America is like being able-bodied. The systems I operate in were designed by people like me, and the majority of them are still run by people like me. It would be really easy for me to live my life oblivious to the fact that people who look different than me have a very different experience of America than I do. The only reason I know that’s not the case is because I’ve spent years working with and becoming friends with and caring about people who don’t share my race and class (I work in public education in a large urban school district). I see my male students get stopped and frisked for no reason other than they are Latino males. I see them get followed around by suspicious security personnel when I take them on field trips to public places, in a way that I have never in my life been followed. I’ve seen my Black colleagues have to present ID or additional proof to gain admittance to places that I don’t (most recent example would be when checking into a hotel for a conference, I just had to give my name, my colleague had to present ID). The list goes on. Any one of these things in isolation would be easy to brush off, but the fact that they happen over and over and over again makes it impossible to pretend it’s a racially neutral coincidence. And I know I am only seeing a small glimpse of the picture, because at the end of the day I’m still not experiencing any of this directly, I’m only witnessing it – and I’m sure there are plenty of times when I don’t even notice because it is so routine.

The fact that we live in a systematically racist country is hard to accept, because we all want to believe that we are in sole control of our own destinies – I worked hard to be successful, therefore anyone who struggles must not be working hard enough, right? If I still just interacted with my own family and the people I went to school with – people who, like me, are all white, middle class, college educated, straight, and able bodied – I’m sure I would think that way too. But the more time I spend with people outside of my own demographics, the more impossible it becomes to pretend my naïve version of reality is all there is. Again, that doesn’t mean institutional racism is my fault, it just means that I have a responsibility to learn from people who are different than me and from their experiences, and to do what I can to make it better – hence my choice to work in public education, which is possibly the least lucrative option I could have chosen after graduating MIT. But I love my work and feel lucky that I get to do it, because I believe it brings us one step closer to an America that lives up to its promise of equality for all citizens, and I can’t imagine anything more worthwhile.

Initially this seemed to read like old news. There exists literature in psychology about identity development (Beverly Tatum's Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? covers childhood and developmental psychology very well) but I suppose adult, post-formed identity is new territory.

Tatum cites work done by William Cross on racial identity development that explains why some Blacks would be happier. When trying to assimilate into white normative culture, there is a form of self-repression. There can also be anger at a society that wants you to assimilate but will never accept you. The only thing that can make someone happy in this situation is to embrace the identity that society forces upon them and making it a positive thing.

r/psychology's out-of-hand dismissal was rather surprising, but then again, I don't know how many of the commenters are academic or practicing psychologists, or just pop-(or worse, evo-)psych enthusiasts. The op did have some interesting comments regarding hir multiracial children.

Thank you for your comment. It is very illuminating and I think there are some similarities and lessons we can take from each other.

It's often helpful to try to gauge whether the person actually has any willingness to listen to a response. Online screamers are often best ignored. But in person (and sometimes online) I find that if I ask something like, "Did you want to hear my perspective on that, or just to state your position?" in an ABSOLUTELY NEUTRAL WAY, most people feel obliged to listen at least a little. It can't come across critical or sarcastic.

I sometimes start by pointing out that we're hearing more about the harm our words can cause. But that doesn't mean the harm is new.


A lot of the reaction is from people's fears that they will be accused of racism or sexism despite having genuinely good intentions. (If you want to read a book about it, I strongly recommend White Fragility.) I usually respond to that with a driving metaphor:

A good driver knows the rules of the road, knows that different driving is needed in different circumstances for courtesy and safety. // A good boss knows how to treat all employees fairly, knows that the "rules of the road" aren't always exactly what they were in 1970.

Just wanting to be a good driver isn't enough. // Most bosses want to be non-racist, non-sexist, etc. but if they don't learn about diversity, they're probably going to handle it wrong.

Occasional small mistakes on an otherwise good driving record are usually forgiven, although they may still cause harm. // If a boss who is consistently sensitive and fair one day accidentally uses an inadvisable word, takes responsibility for it, and apologizes, chances are good that the boss will be forgiven. That doesn't mean that no harm was done, or that the harm was erased.

Laws and expectations for driving change. Drivers have to change with the times if they expect to be safe and avoid fines. If your town adds roundabouts, you have to learn how to use them. Just intending to be a good driver isn't enough. // The boss needs to know about issues that affect each employee differently. Sometimes a new issue will arise, like a transgender employee. Just like you aren't a good driver if you decide to plow through a roundabout, you're not a good boss if you fail to learn how to treat a transgender employee.



Also, there's a few Barry Deutch cartoons that I sometimes use:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/12255982

https://i1.wp.com/amptoons.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/racists-are-unicorns.png

https://i1.wp.com/leftycartoons.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/09/race-card.png

https://i2.wp.com/leftycartoons.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2008/10/bob-and-race-color.png

https://i0.wp.com/leftycartoons.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2018/05/sexual-assault-saying-no.png

https://i1.wp.com/leftycartoons.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2017/01/trans-special-treatment2.png

This Planet of the Apes book deals with essentially the same things.

Thomas Jefferson wrote about a similar scenario as well. I'd be happy to excerpt it if anyone is interested.

The book Readings for Diversity and Social Justice is pretty powerful and follows a nice format: Naming the issue, discussing historical context, discussing with stats how it currently stands, personal stories from oppressed peoples, and next steps to create change.

Each chapter follows a different type of oppression with racesim at the forefront. What Adams is so good at is pointing out that nearly every oppressed demographic (age, gender, religion, disability, class, etc) is also affected by race. Race is intersected with all of these and cannot be separated. I've really enjoyed it.

It's not surprising that Sully reports on this with lack of depth, and that he goes with super liberal, polite for white audiences quotes from the NAACP. He is, after all, a complete asshat.

Michelle Alexander (whose book I want to read) and Bryan Stevenson discuss this from a much different, and more honest, point of view on Bill Moyers Journal ( seriously, how much do I miss this show?).

You should get this book in your hands as fast as you can. It's an amazing story about Chicago and the practice of Contract Selling, another insidious form of housing discrimination.

If you haven't read them, you may also be interested in some of this author's previous work... specifically, The Wages of Whiteness and Working Toward Whiteness.

Also, Noel Ignatiev's How the Irish Became White.

PS The promotional flyer for the new book includes a code for 20% off preorders from the Oxford University Press website.

Yes there is.

http://www.amazon.com/The-New-Crow-Incarceration-Colorblindness/dp/1595586431

Yeah, there's no way nude photos of 'Mericans would ever be commercalized...

She has expanded this to an entire book, "The History of White People" http://www.amazon.com/History-White-People-Irvin-Painter/dp/0393339742

I offer this text as a productive counter example of the OP's claim

>something happened (integration, maybe?) and blacks as a group seemed to digress in terms of their accomplishments.

I think this is pretty accurate. Part of it is certainly the fact that the Civil Rights Act generated a lot of backlash from racists. A professor at FSU actually wrote a book (which I would like to read eventually) about how this led to decrease public support for welfare – after integration people began to see black Americans as "the face of poverty", and the notion that social programs were good stopped being a given when racist white people started worrying that they might accidentally help a black person.