On the Road to Racism

Have you ever awaken and realized I AM A RACIST?

Nope?

Do not worry me neither, (wait you did)? Well, how did that brick feel when it hit you? Did you try to convince yourself it was a lucid dream (tell the truth)? If that is the first thought I awake to, just let me stay sleep forever.

For the rest of us underachievers...

What are some signs you are on the road to racism? If you are on said road, does that mean you will absolutely end up at your destination? In this driving class, we will tour each road and you can decide for yourself if you have driven on them and if a detour is needed.

First stop:

Prejudice Parkway: Is a baseless and usually negative attitude toward members of a group.

If you are lost on this road, you will refuse to ask an African American for directions.

Bigotry Boulevard: Is an intolerance of another person’s opinions or beliefs.

If you are lost on this road and a Euro American offers you directions, you will refuse to hear their suggestion.

Discrimination Drive: Is an action or practice that excludes, disadvantages, or engages in disparate treatment (all else being equal) between individuals or groups on the basis of some ascribed or perceived trait.

If you find yourself on this road, you will refuse to allow American Indians to drive on it while allowing every other driver.

Stereotype Street: Is an often exaggerated, rigid belief applied to individuals and groups of people.

If you are driving on this street and see an Asian American driving recklessly, you will then apply this example to all Asian American drivers.

Or if you see another car driving recklessly, you assume it is an Asian American driver.

Ethnocentrism Expressway: There are two lanes on this path of superiority.

The left lane views your culture as superior to any other culture, based upon judging other cultures by your cultural ideals. The right lane leads to blindness in cultural differences or a failure to acknowledge the differences between beliefs and behaviors may be due to being raised in different cultures.

If you are driving in the left lane, you will feel or think that because you are American, your driving ability is superior to drivers from all other cultures. If you are driving in the right lane, you will fail to acknowledge that people from different cultures may have different driving habits due to different cultural demands.

If you do recognize different driving habits, you still may negatively attribute an inability to drive to people from a different culture, instead of considering that maybe the driver is used to driving on the right side of the road instead of the left.

Colorism Corner: Is discrimination or bias based on skin color.

If you are standing on this corner choosing what cars look the best, you will choose light colored cars over darker ones, just because they are lighter.

Racism Road: Where a host of practices, beliefs, social relations and phenomena work to reproduce a racial hierarchy and social structure that yields superiority and privilege for some, and oppression for others.

So you have arrived at your destination.

If you end up on this road then you probably have driven on the prior roads (practices), which will negatively influence how you feel or perceive other drivers (beliefs), which erodes the rules of the road (social relations).

As a majority of drivers follow the road to racism, an EZ Pass Lane develops for certain color and type of cars (racial hierarchy-social structure), preventing other drivers from accessing or benefiting (privilege-oppression) from the EZ Pass Lane.

As years are spent driving on the road to racism, drivers in the EZ Pass Lane may develop tunnel vision (implicit racism) and never slow down long enough to notice drivers in other lanes or how rundown their roads of become.

Interestingly, when driver from the EZ Pass Lane crashes into a driver from the other lane, the EZ Pass driver often claims that an accident never happened (racism no longer exists) or that the other driver is the cause of the accident (reverse racism).

Driver safety tips:

It should be noted that prior roads are not a strict linear path to Racism Road.

They can and do intersect in various ways. Some people stay stuck on one road, though all roads tend to reinforce each other which perpetuate the use of racism road.

Hopefully these signposts will help us all develop safer driving habits.

Buckle up out there.

~CW