The Racist=Bad/Not Racist=Good Binary

This binary certainly obscures racism and makes it difficult for us to see or understand. Another problem with the binary concerns the impact of such a worldview on our actions. If, as a white person, I conceptualize racism as a binary and I see myself on the "not racist" side, what further action is required of me? No action is required at all because I am not a racist. Therefore racism is not my problem; it doesn't concern me and there is nothing further I need to do. This guarantees that, as a member of the dominant group, I will not build my skills in thinking critically about racism or use my position to challenge racial inequality. Further, if I conceptualize racism as an either/or proposition, any suggestion that I have racist thoughts or feelings places me on the "wrong" side of the binary. As a result, all of my energy will go to denying and negating this possibility rather than trying to understand what these thoughts and feelings are and how they are manifesting in my actions.

If you are white and have ever been challenged to look at an aspect of yourself related to racism - perhaps you told a problematic joke or made a prejudiced assumption, and someone brought it to your attention - it is common to feel very defensive. This defensiveness reveals the binary that informs our understanding of racism; we interpret the feedback to mean that we have done something bad and are thus being told that we are bad people. This binary, which is the foundation of whites' understanding of racism (Trepag nier, 2010) and the defensiveness it triggers are primary obstacles preventing us from moving forward in our understanding. As African American scholar and filmmaker Omowale Akintunde (1999) says:

Racism is a systemic, societal, institutional, omnipresent, and epistemologically embedded phenomenon that pervades every vestige of our reality. For most whites, however, racism is like murder: the concept exists, but someone has to commit it in order for it to happen. This limited view of such a multilayered syndrome cultivates the sinister nature of racism and, in fact, perpetuates racist phenomena rather than eradicates them.

The above is an excerpt from ‘ What does it mean to be white? Developing white racial literacy by Robin Diangelo available to purchase at Peter Lang publishers