Who is Racist?

I have this amazing gift. I have the ability to tell if someone is racist. It's just something that I stumbled upon when I arrived on campus three years ago. Let me explain how my gift works:

In situations where others superficially question their attitudes about race, they ask me in a carefully cloaked way if they are racist. For example, a former co-worker of mine was talking about a music-awards show. She mentioned that she didn't enjoy the rappers who performed because she could not understand what they were saying. She said she hated rap. OK. Fine. Then out of nowhere, she turned to me and said, "I wasn't talking about you. You know that right?"

Huh?

Oh, I get it. Rappers are, for the most part, black. I'm black so therefore I would be offended. It's all related. She should have just slapped me — at least I would have known how to react. Her real question was: "I'm not being racist, am I?"

I didn't know what to say. I managed to give her a blank stare and a shrug. Didn't she know it wasn't — it isn't — a yes-or-no question?

What bothered me was that a simple "that was OK" would have satisfied any worries or insecurities she might have had. No delving into herself, no discovering her true thoughts on race. And why did she need affirmation from me?

It amazes me that people think talking about race is racist. It's almost as ignorant as when whites — at a confrontational moment in a discussion of race — say "Don't blame me," often followed by "I did not enslave your ancestors."

Yes, that's true, but even though you did not enslave my great-grandparents, you are not completely free of the patterns of actions and words that were implanted in you by your parents and grandparents.

When you get an affirmation from me — a person of color — you feel good. I mean, if a black person doesn't believe you're racist, then who will? And your thoughts on race can comfortably end there.

But you see, my opinion is not enough to tell you that you're not racist. We need to acknowledge a deeper understanding of racism — not just racism that is easily identified and reviled — but broad-patterned, systemic, insidious racism. It is the kind of uncomfortable racism that is present everywhere but that most people cannot see. People tend to think racism exists on an individual basis — Uncle Joe the bigot — and do not look further into the invisible systems that confer privilege or dominance on their own racial group.

It's not as though we don't talk about racial issues on a larger scale. Millions were obsessed by the O.J. Simpson trial, with its knotty questions about race and the criminal justice system.

No one wants to be called racist. The word not only brands a person as intellectually and morally inferior but links him or her to hooded sickos who beat and kill minorities. And the accusations — whether merited or not — often bring stinging penalties, from shunning to expulsion from school. The word racist has become a powerful weapon of intimidation, arguably the contemporary equivalent of the 1950s charge of communism.

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Because nobody on campus wants to be labeled a racist, most people steer clear of saying or doing anything that some member of a minority group might label as racist. Out of fear, most people — especially whites — studiously avoid touchy issues and provocative statements. There's only one problem with that: The issue of race is too old to be a touchy subject — it's inseparable from American history.

So start talking: Probe that pinch of doubt, blurt out all the small and large questions hiding in your hearts and start clearing away some of the barriers separating us. Martha Pitts is an English major from New Orleans. She is the Corresponding Secretary of the Third World Center Governance Board and can be reached at mbpitts@princeton.edu.