Unconscious Side of Racism
December 3, 2009 by blackgirlgrown
Filed under race
I stumbled upon Race Talk, the recently relaunched blog and online magazine of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity. The site features articles by authors, advocates, social justice leaders, and journalists on gender and equity issues in the US and globally.
Of note, an article by contributor John A. Powell on understanding the unconscious side of racism.
Powell begins by referencing a New York Times story reporting that even educated blacks may suffer racial discrimination in the job market.
According to Powell:
When these stories appear – and it indeed is a good thing that they do appear – there is always an element of surprise and a dearth of information on what, if anything, can or should be done as a result.
Powell goes on to describe the unconscious mind and racism:
Some of this confusion would go away if we had a more sophisticated understanding of race. We mainly talk about race and racial discrimination in terms of explicit, conscious attitudes; in this domain there is much to suggest we have made progress. But this is far from the whole story. Race occupies many domains, not just what is in our explicit, conscious mind. There are two other important areas on which to focus. One is what is in our unconscious mind, also referred to as implicit mind. The second is the effect of our institutional and cultural interactions in our society. Continue Reading.
We look forward to reading more from Race Talk.
blackgirlgrown
