Carrie Allan,
Takoma Park, MD.

I’m always amazed by white people who make an argument that racism is in the past. How can any of us make that claim without living the experience? Recently I watched an online discussion about the English language and the absurdities of political correctness in academia devolve into an argument about race. It started when a black woman gently expressed discomfort with some of the scorn expressed about the need for awareness of other people’s experience. I was amazed by comments equating racism with anti-Irish sentiment by the English and even with biases against particular art forms. It reminded me of an amazing line from a New Yorker feature about Richard Pryor, in which the writer said that exposing things to white people is like trying to explain them to babies. It’s not because we’re stupid — most of us just have no experience that allows us to fully understand what it’s like to be instantly visually “categorized” by people in power.