This is how they don't see it.
I am going someplace with this. Bear with me a moment.
It is a well known psychological phenomenon that people see what they want to see. If I am expecting to see John come through that door right now and instead George does, it will take my brain a few beats to see that it isn't John. Our brain does a LOT of extrapolating because we are never in possession of all the facts. We have blind spots in our vision that we don't notice because our brain extrapolates from the view around the blind spot and fills in the hole for us. Our brains are designed to help us leap to conclusions.
Another well known phenomenon is that we are very reluctant to ascribe negative attributes to ourselves. How many people do you know who are greedy, manipulative, spiteful, lazy. . . .? How many admit to it? How many negative attributes to you admit to?
The attribute 'racist' is, correctly in my opinion, seen as highly negative by most people. It would take a LOT for someone to admit to it. Dylan Roof referred to himself as 'racially aware.' Even he couldn't bring himself to admit he was racist. He is the man who entered a predominantly black church, engaged in bible study with them for an hour, and then killed nine of them, saying he was doing it because black people are raping 'our' women and taking over the country. How is it that there are people who can't see this act as racist? How is that possible?
It is possible because, as I noted above, we see what we expect to see and what we want to see. Eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable, and people who are learning about an event without witnessing it are even moreso. The information goes through their internal filters. Those filters say, "slavery has been abolished. Jim Crow has been abolished. The Equal Employment Opportunity Act is the law of the land. There is a black President. Clearly racisim is no longer a problem in the US, or it wouldn't be if black people didn't keep on blaming everything bad that happens to them on racism. Bad things happen to whites, too! Bad things happen to everyone. Stop saying it's racism."
For those people, they do not want to see racism. They want it to be part of history and not the present. I can't fault them for that. I don't want to see it, either. I want it to be part of the past, too.
If your filter is telling you that racism doesn't exist or is an inconsequential shadow of its former self, you can't look at Roof and see racism. You see a confused, mentally ill kid. You see an isolated nutjob. He can't be part of a bigger problem. The police have him in custody. He won't harm anyone ever again.
Every time there is a police shooting of an unarmed black man, every time some vigilante kills an unarmed black man for, essentially, walking in a white neighborhood, every time racism rears its ugly here in the US, someone with such filters (again, who really decries racism and thinks it is wrong) will see other issues besides racism as the cause. The victim MUST have brought it on himself because racism is no longer part of our society. They will say it's racist to be even paying attention to racism in these cases because, as we noted, bad things happen to white people, too.
I don't think most people who refuse to see these incidents as racist are racist themselves, necessarily. I think their deep-seated desire for racism to be history only makes them delude themselves.
It is a well known psychological phenomenon that people see what they want to see. If I am expecting to see John come through that door right now and instead George does, it will take my brain a few beats to see that it isn't John. Our brain does a LOT of extrapolating because we are never in possession of all the facts. We have blind spots in our vision that we don't notice because our brain extrapolates from the view around the blind spot and fills in the hole for us. Our brains are designed to help us leap to conclusions.
Another well known phenomenon is that we are very reluctant to ascribe negative attributes to ourselves. How many people do you know who are greedy, manipulative, spiteful, lazy. . . .? How many admit to it? How many negative attributes to you admit to?
The attribute 'racist' is, correctly in my opinion, seen as highly negative by most people. It would take a LOT for someone to admit to it. Dylan Roof referred to himself as 'racially aware.' Even he couldn't bring himself to admit he was racist. He is the man who entered a predominantly black church, engaged in bible study with them for an hour, and then killed nine of them, saying he was doing it because black people are raping 'our' women and taking over the country. How is it that there are people who can't see this act as racist? How is that possible?
It is possible because, as I noted above, we see what we expect to see and what we want to see. Eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable, and people who are learning about an event without witnessing it are even moreso. The information goes through their internal filters. Those filters say, "slavery has been abolished. Jim Crow has been abolished. The Equal Employment Opportunity Act is the law of the land. There is a black President. Clearly racisim is no longer a problem in the US, or it wouldn't be if black people didn't keep on blaming everything bad that happens to them on racism. Bad things happen to whites, too! Bad things happen to everyone. Stop saying it's racism."
For those people, they do not want to see racism. They want it to be part of history and not the present. I can't fault them for that. I don't want to see it, either. I want it to be part of the past, too.
If your filter is telling you that racism doesn't exist or is an inconsequential shadow of its former self, you can't look at Roof and see racism. You see a confused, mentally ill kid. You see an isolated nutjob. He can't be part of a bigger problem. The police have him in custody. He won't harm anyone ever again.
Every time there is a police shooting of an unarmed black man, every time some vigilante kills an unarmed black man for, essentially, walking in a white neighborhood, every time racism rears its ugly here in the US, someone with such filters (again, who really decries racism and thinks it is wrong) will see other issues besides racism as the cause. The victim MUST have brought it on himself because racism is no longer part of our society. They will say it's racist to be even paying attention to racism in these cases because, as we noted, bad things happen to white people, too.
I don't think most people who refuse to see these incidents as racist are racist themselves, necessarily. I think their deep-seated desire for racism to be history only makes them delude themselves.