One day I met this amazing person in the blogosphere named Robyn.  We decided to have a conversation.

Hi Robyn,

I think it’s a veg-out-to-music kind of evening.  This is the only downside to cyber friends…we can’t veg out together.  I mean I could stare at this e-mail and then pretend you were staring at your e-mail, but I feel like it wouldn’t quite be the same. lol  I am sorry I can’t provide you with much stimulation today.   I did come up with an interesting thought yesterday about racism though.  I have recently been very interested in the way in which the nature of racism can change in a society from the blatant to the more subtle.  I am not sure if I can decide which one is worse.  I’m glad people in white sheets aren’t going around anymore and hanging black people from trees and burning churches, but that tends to be the easier thing to stand up to…the obvious thing that you can point to and say…”Hey that action is wrong”.

But racism is more than those things.

Comforts of privilege often go unnoticed and cause a lot of damage to those being oppressed.  It’s easy to prove the racism when there are bruises and cuts, but when you make a person believe that they are less than they actually are and that this is just normal in society, a true change towards equality becomes more difficult.  When institutions like criminal justice, education, health care, have inherent racism built in, maybe it’s a greater crime. It’s harder in these situations to point a finger of blame and harder to know exactly who the victim is. I don’t know, I think I have to develop it in my mind a bit more.

I even sort of came up with this analogy of racism in times past being fought by the foot soldiers who were obvious and easier to spot, but that the real problem was their generals who were the strategists who made entire institutions in society racist and these people are hidden.  They are the ones who don’t fight, who don’t take up arms, but prey on weak and desperate minds to do the dirty work for them.  They no longer can incite men into action because it is no longer acceptable, but their institutions of racism are still well maintained…always watching and waiting.  I know sounds a bit too sinister.  I’m not sure I fully believe in sinister, but I’m just trying to wrap my head around it all.  I think in some ways it’s the same in regards to gender oppression as well.