"All Americans, not just people of color, need to be better schooled in the subtle yet complex ways that race actually works in the 21st century. Racial literacy requires familiarity with unconscious bias as well as structural racism. It demands a far more nuanced approach than typical charges of racism or race-carding.
To understand what happened on that Cambridge porch, we must free ourselves of the stereotype that racism is always overt—a police officer with a dog and a fire hose. Race and racism are today more like passive smoke. We all inhale the toxic fumes even if we are not the one lighting up the cigarette. And if we take the time to lift the curtain that postracialists insist on pulling over our eyes, we might begin to realize that a porch encounter ostensibly about racial profiling is nevertheless a sign of larger and more systemwide injustices."
by Lani Guinier, professor of law at the Harvard Law School. Click for complete article.
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