Class Discussion

This week in class the topic of racism has been brought up several times. The question of what is the difference between: "How racist am I?" vs. "How am I racist?" is actually a common debate that people have today. It's true that the the first question is asking more on how do you classify yourself as racist on a scale and everybody's scale is going to be different. But the second question goes much deeper than that. "How am I racist?" makes one really question how they go about their conversations, manners, and actions regarding someone and their race. It forces us to look within ourselves, explore and pinpoint the things that we may not have initially thought about but what could potentially come off as discriminatory to someone else. Also, the second question eliminates the idea of "no racism" existing, while the first one allows the individual to include in their scale the possibility of acknowledging and believing that they are not racist. In Silent Racism, Trepagnier makes it a point to tell the reader that pretty much everyone is racist since it can exist in many forms. It's important for people to ask themselves the second question. Not necessarily to change the way they act, but to acknowledge and remember that racism is still existent in its many hidden forms.