Question

 

1. The definitions of racism might not be your own perceptions. What are your own perceptions of race and how will you prepare yourself to challenge your beliefs moving forward?
2. Racist perceptions of black people spawn from racist policy and ideas and not black behavior. You will need to begin to recognize these ideas in order to be an antiracist. Can you name three perceptions of black people which stem from racist ideology and not black behavior?
3. How does viewing white people as the standard for the American ideal hurt everyone and how can you, as an emerging antiracist, better view white people?

Answer 1

1) Race has always been a complicated issue for me as someone of South Asian descent since I'm unable to understand the racial tensions between white and black people.But society has conditioned us to understand race in a binary without teaching us the nuances of racial experience.Raw statistics don't explain why black people have higher rates of interaction with police or why minorities are jailed at much higher rates.I'll try to understand how public institutions interact with different races going on ahead.I also plan to actively understand whether any of my conscious or unconscious decisions are based on implicit biases moving on ahead.

2)Three of such perceptions are :-

a)Black people commit crimes at a higher rate per capita

This perception doesn't take into account the long lasting effects of slavery and a lack of home ownership and good educational access.

b)Black people are lazy

The higher unemployment rates don't account for the impact of felony convictions and minor drug charges and the long lasting damages because of this. Institutional bias and negative perceptions about black people also affect their employment opportunities.

c)Black people do drugs

Once again,the impact of poor housing policy and continuation of this into access to education isn't factored into understanding why people turn to drugs and the long term impact of the drugs policy of the government.

3) Viewing white people as the standard hurts everyone since multiple cultural practices which don't conform to the white norm are ignored or shunned which effectively does not allow for cultural cross pollination.In order to be antiracist,one must actively try to understand whether any particular behaviour or interaction with people is stemming from an an implicit or explicit bias .I'll also try to interact with different cultures in order to understand different traditions and cultures in order to erase my biases in the future.