Casual Racism

Casual racism effects society in countless ways and chips away at the very soul of those who encounter it on a daily basis.

"Oh, you're from Harlem! You don't act like someone from Harlem."

"Oh, you go to (an Ivy League) University?! How did YOU get in?! You're on scholarship, right? Oh, you're in the degree program and not some certificate program!?"

Getting on an elevator a Caucasian woman when she sees you, an African-American woman entering the elevator alone, shifts her pocketbook to the other side of her body, and looks fearful, as the doors of the elevator closes.

A problem comes up on the job and someone is asked to get a specific supervisor who is sitting on the other side of the department. She is training. The person is given the name of said supervisor and when sent to summon the supervisor, sees an African-American woman who is training two Caucasian women employees who are subordinate. He excuses himself to the African-American woman and speaks to the two Caucasian women and asks which of them is the supervisor. They point to the African-American woman who he has just ignored as possibly being the supervisor he was sent to summon.

A well known Georgia State Congress Woman, an African-American Woman, and two of her clerks try to enter The House of Representatives for a meeting of Congress, and the two Caucasian women are allowed to enter without being asked for ID to prove their identity and the reason for their being there, but The Congress Woman is stopped and detained and questioned when she does not provide ID nor is she believed when she states that she is a Congress Woman. A similar incident happens again months later. Members of Congress are traditionally not requested to show ID, but the civilians who work for them are, when trying to enter The Floor of The House of Representatives. Congress Woman Cynthia McKinney lodged a formal complaint as to her treatment at the hands of security.

A woman decides to run away from her home days before her wedding, a wedding that included 14 brides maids. It is unclear why she ran, but it is certainly clear that she lied when she called to state the reason for her disappearance. She stated that she had been kidnapped by a Latino Man and his Caucasian female companion. She then recanted a few days later. Sometimes during such weird cases of disappearances and other extreme matters, a person will lie to cover the fact that they are the reason for the extreme matter occurring by saying someone, usually a person of color, created the problem. This stems from the fact that it is so easy to believe a person of color committed a crime.

The feasibility of stating a lie - that a disappearance occurred because of an act of criminality by a Latino - is that which is the very base of what society thinks of people of color. And all other thoughts about people of color by persons spring from this very base and foundation, thus tinting the thought process of what and who people of color are, as a group, with casual racism. The woman did not care that she risked The Latino men of her community being snatched from their homes, cars, and jobs, to be questioned by police authority as to her whereabouts. The casualness of some racism and its acceptability in it being spoken and used as a weapon to thwart the truth, and its acceptability allowing those who use it to think of people of color as beneath them and inferior, and hoping that others do same so that lies will be believed, is angering.

Casual racism, the small incidences, and not the outlandishly racist occurrences we read about, are sometimes more effecting in spreading ugliness than the not so casual racism, as it is a process that ferments and festers in the brain to be forever remembered as a slight that was unjustified, undeserved, unwarranted, and came about just because of the color of one's skin and the inherent racism that exists in the society to which we all belong.