From the course: Just Ask: Kwame Christian on Discussing Race

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Talking to friends about unconscious racism

Talking to friends about unconscious racism

From the course: Just Ask: Kwame Christian on Discussing Race

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Talking to friends about unconscious racism

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- [Narrator] Next, a question from a banking professional in Minnesota who asks, how can I talk to my friends about their unconscious racism, the white allergies that some white people have about race? - [Kwame] When we're talking about sensitive issues, we have to recognize that people might have negative associations with specific terms. For example, sometimes if I'm talking to somebody and I mentioned a term like structural racism, they're unable to accept that term because for them, racism requires human intent and a structure or a system cannot be racist because it is not a human and therefore cannot act with intentionality. That's their perspective, that's just how they define those words. But when I define structural racism and give them an example, then they agree with it. As long as I don't call it racism, they agree with it. And so my goal in these conversations is to help them to understand that…

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