Many white people who consider themselves decent, concerned citizens, no matter where they are on the political spectrum, look upon racism as a too-sensitive subject. It seems so, because it is super-charged by our history and because racial prejudice never seems to go away. 

As white people, we never seem to reach a point where we can safely say we are not racist.  Someone else always seems to remind us that no matter how much personal progress we’ve made in shedding our prejudice, we can never embrace people of color as our brothers and sisters, except in situations where we momentarily have summoned the virtue to love across the lines.

My husband, a physician, says that right down to the very particles of our atoms, human beings are always are engaged in a relentless process of self/non-self discrimination. Through evolutionary dictates over which we have no control at all, our bodies are constantly policed by microscopic agents always on the lookout to destroy that which is not “us.” 

Can it be any surprise that our psyches might be constructed in similar ways?    [Read more…]