 There's a strange phenomenon that's been going on for a while and it has multiple layers to it. I'm half black but look white, so I haven't had to endure anywhere near the amount of racism that most black people have had to deal with. Still, I see instances of racism as well as systemic racism happening regularly. But there's a portion of black people who regularly deny that anything is racist make excuses for the racism or do a combination of the two. There's something happening on a psychological level as well as a status level and I wanted to do my best to tease these things apart to try and figure out what is going on. Whenever a person, situation, or system is being called racist, there's a designated group of black folk who come out of the woodwork like racism referees to chime in and just say, not racist. They give a person place, institution, or even a situation their black seal of approval as non-racist and go along their merry way. When this happens, you'll see white people share their tweets or video clips far and wide because a black person has given them their blessing. They can now toss this situation into their quote unquote non-racist toolkit and use it whenever they please. As I see this happen when blatantly racist situations arise, I can't help but wonder if there's a protective form of delusion happening in the black person's mind. It's sort of like the just world fallacy when we believe that bad things only happen to bad people. It eases our anxieties that something terrible can happen to us. Is it possible that these black people deny racism every chance they get so that they can rest easier believing that racism doesn't exist? I can only imagine what it's like moving through this world wondering if you experienced racism. Whether you were denied a job, treated poorly, pulled over by the cops, it must suck to have to ask every single time, was that racism? But what's a hell of a lot easier than doing that is to just strike anything down as racist whenever you get the chance. From here, you can retreat into your happy place believing that it's never happened to you and it never will. Meanwhile, black people are actually dealing with this and fighting for change while these people are creating a massive obstacle. Like if I told you a white person convinced a black person to go to a party where there was a happy Juneteenth sign next to a bucket of Kentucky fried chicken and bottles of cognac, would you say that's racist? Even if I told you that that same white person that took them to the party also had an anonymous Twitter account named ho ho homeboy and they pretended to be a caricature of a black person and they tweeted things like what damn council folks been eaten, loudy, look at them, days big as barns, even that hand lady. Would you think that that white person might be just a little bit racist? Like even a tiny bit? Well, trust me, we're going to come back to this story a little bit later. But something I should get out of the way before we get started is my thoughts around the current state of calling things racist amidst these wacky culture wars. I'm sure many will believe I'm one of those woke warriors who runs around calling everything racist and that could not be further from the truth. I recently wrote a piece about how often I get in trouble with my fellow leftist for my views. One of the things that gets me into trouble is that my bar for seeing something as racist is extremely high. I typically try to give people the benefit of the doubt and often attribute things they do or say to ignorance or some kind of unconscious biases. There are situations where many people would call something racist and I'll be the first to say, I'm not so sure that's what we're seeing here. So if you're here in bad faith thinking that I'm Ibram Kendi or Robin D'Angelo 2.0, you're sorely mistaken. This in combination with my skepticism and the burden of proof that I require for just about everything, it takes quite a bit for me to call a person or system racist. By the time I label something racist, the amount of evidence is far too much to deny. I think that due to all of these factors including my skepticism, it's why I've noticed those in the black community who deny that anything is racist. It's creating a major problem. And what's worse is that I believe that they believe they're actually helping. In reality, they are being used and it needs to be addressed. So what is racism? I think a good starting point in this conversation with anyone is to ask something extremely simple. All we have to do is ask. Do you believe that racism exists? Well, do you? Because I think if you asked 1000 people this question, I think it's safe to say that at least 990 of them would say yes. I don't know what's going on with those other 10, but we'll figure them out later. For the other 990 people out of 1000, this is extremely important. If the majority of people believe that racism exists, why do so many people never see it happening? A book that was recommended to me so many times was Racism Without Racist, Color Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America by Eduardo Bonilla Silva. It took me way too long to read this book. And now I think it should be required reading because the entire book is about this topic that we're addressing today. Not only that, but it's backed by a ton of research. Through Bonilla Silva's research, he found that while most of us admit that racism exists, we seem to never see it. And that's kind of weird, right? I couldn't put this book down as it continued to showcase transcripts from actual conversations with people on a wide range of topics as they excuse racism. The survey conversations go a little bit like this. Researcher, do you believe Black people are denied jobs or promotions because of their race? Responding. Oh, absolutely. And I think it's just awful. This should never happen. And it's totally unfair to do this to someone based on their race. This is a terrible form of racism. Researcher responds, here's a story of a Black man or woman who worked at a place for five plus years without a raise or a promotion at their company while watching white people get hired above them and getting paid more. Are they dealing with racism? And then the respondent says, well, the white person may have been more qualified. Like they might have had more education or experience in the field. And that's why they were able to get the job or promotion. Or another situation might go like this. Researcher, do you think Black people are discriminated against or lack the same opportunities as white people when it comes to getting into colleges? Respondent. Absolutely. It's terrible that they're held back in so many ways and live in underfunded communities and don't benefit from nepotism and other factors that help white people get into these schools. Researcher then asks, if a Black person gets the same grades as a white person and meets all of the same criteria as a white person for getting into a school, do you think that the Black person should get in to counteract some of these issues with racism? And the respondent says, well, I don't really think that would be fair if they just got in based on their race. I know that I personally worked really hard to get into my school. So I don't really think it'd be fair if the college did something like that. Racism without racist is literally hundreds of pages of this stuff with interviews with dozens of different people. As I read this book, my jaw was on the floor. As I read these transcripts and witnessed the mental backflips people did to deny that racism was ever happening. Or if they agreed that racism was happening, they didn't want to agree to any solutions because it might screw up just how good they have. And this is extremely common when we're looking and addressing white privilege. What's worse is when you see Black people using this same type of logic to defend everything we see going on and refuse to admit that this is actually happening. In his book, Bonilla Silva writes, the central component of any dominant racial ideology is its frames or set pass for interpreting information. These set pass operate as cul-de-sacs because after people filter issues through them, they explain racial phenomena following a predictable route. Although by definition, dominant frames must misrepresent the world, hide the fact of dominance. This does not mean that they are totally without foundation. For instance, it is true that people of color in the United States are much better off today than at any other time in history. However, it is also true facts hidden by colorblind racism that because people of color still experience systematic discrimination and remain appreciably behind whites in many important areas of life, their chances of catching up with whites are very slim. What we're seeing is that people are choosing to interpret these situations however they want, which perpetuates the dominance that white people experience regularly. For black people, this is something that must be hard to grapple with. I've written about how delusional thinking can be useful. Like if you didn't think you could accomplish something, you may not even try. This is why we evolve to lie to ourselves. It only makes sense that some black people are using this delusion as a way to cope with very real situations that are going on. And it's not just limited to racism either. While people admit it exists, people deny that anyone is racist and I first had this brought to my attention when a skeptic was talking about pseudoscience. They were saying we all know the pseudoscience exists, but nobody wakes up in the morning and says to themselves, I'm going to go and put my pseudoscience lab code on and practice some pseudoscience at my pseudoscience lab. These people think they're practicing legit science. I think the most salient example that comes to mind is Elon Musk. The guy will legit talk about the quote unquote elites. Although Tesla stock isn't what it used to be, he's still the richest man in the world. So who the hell is Elon Musk referring to when he says elites? In his mind, he is not one of these people. And that's pretty crazy, right? Well, not only are many people denying racism, but racists don't even think they're racist. What got this topic stuck in my head was a particular story. And I've seen this group of black deniers of racism everywhere since this happened. Remember that story I mentioned at the beginning of Juneteenth and the tweets? Well, here's the real life story, something that actually happened. So a black firefighter in New York is suing because his captain pressured him to go to this party. When they got to the party, there were a ton of black racist tropes as quote unquote jokes. There was a bucket of Kentucky fried chicken on a table with bottles of cognac and flags for Juneteenth. The party was called a quote unquote liberal smashing pool party because I guess owning the lives is just doing some really racist stuff. Again, my bar for racism is pretty high. As somebody who tries to avoid conflict as much as possible while in person, I personally would have done the same mental backflips that I'm criticizing right now just to excuse the behavior. I would chalk this up to ignorance, and I would probably just passive aggressively let them know that this isn't cool. I'd maybe even try educating the captain on why this is kind of messed up just in case he didn't know because sometimes you just got to educate some fools, but this wasn't me. And I think that's very important to touch on. So there's no way I have ever experienced even a fraction of the racism like the firefighter in this story has experienced in his life. And I think that we have to respect that he found this highly offensive and took the steps that he did because other people are not us. And how can you stop this stuff unless there's some type of punishment that actually happens? Well, after this story made headlines, the fire captain and his family were attacked online and they ended up holding a press conference with their lawyer where in tears, they said that they were victims of cancel culture and as somebody who's been canceled and received harassment and threats from hundreds of thousands of strangers, I definitely empathize. Now, I'm sitting here trying to catch up on this story and do everything I can to give these people the benefit of the doubt and they just goofed up big time. But then I come across this news clip and they point out what this lawyer says, and then we'll talk about what happened moments later. I challenge you. The press look into their backgrounds. Find anything they've done in their lives or 50 plus years lives that's racist. We didn't have to wait long or go very far to accept that challenge because 25 minutes after it was made, Mary Nicosia admitted she's the owner of an anonymous Twitter account that she and the lawyer admit posted racist tweets. Mary Nicosia apologized for that. Perfectly, very news 10 to be seen. Well, right after that, the wife goes up and publicly admits that she has an anonymous Twitter account where she says in her own words that she has made, quote, blatantly racist comments. And then and then this woman has the audacity to go on and say she's not racist because, you know, why? Well, she can't be racist because she grew up around black people. And if you don't believe me, let's watch the clip. There you go. That operates under a veil of a persona. And I have been lately racist comments under that persona. Culture of Twitter operates that way and it's part of its charm. I don't want to say its charm, but it gives you an opportunity to be someone that you're not. In terms of a persona and for these comments, I'd like to apologize to the African American community for what I and other people in the community that I have heard or offended by doing what I was doing on Twitter. And it past 12 difficult days that I've been through, you know, learned a lot and I learned that making a comment under persona of Twitter hurts is just as wrong. Hurts just as much as saying it directly to someone in the room. And I think it's a lesson learned certainly for me. And I think others can learn from the lesson. I'm not a racist person. I grew up in East Cleveland, a very diverse community. And I would doubt or challenge you that you would find anybody in the community that would tell you that I am. But nonetheless, I hold myself accountable and ashamed. It wasn't an easy thing to do to get up and tell you this. And I ask that you accept my apology as it is sincere. It was right here where I felt like I just took a handful of crazy pills. So let me get this straight. This white woman took time out of her day to create an anonymous Twitter account for the sole purpose of making racist tweets. Now, you're probably saying, but Chris, making a Twitter account doesn't take that long. Well, as you can see, she's old as hell. That definitely took some time. And I wouldn't even be surprised if she had to have like one of her grandkids help her to set that account up. But after seeing this story, I just kept asking if this is not racist, then what is? And this is the issue that we run into with black people who keep giving passes to everything that is blatantly racist. They have no definition for what racism actually is. There is nothing you can throw at these people that they will call racist. And I want you to sit there and really ask yourself, what is the burden of proof that's needed for something to be racist? What does a person have to do when we do this? We see where the major issue is with these black people who deny racism. So I know someone who I'm going to leave anonymous and they are one of these black people who regularly deny racism. After knowing this person for all of this time, I've never seen them actually call something racist, but they are one of those people who admits that racism exists. And I think it's important to mention that this person is a really good person. They are legit one of the kindest people that I know. Kindness and compassion are values that we should all admire in a person. But there comes a point where it does more harm than good. I regularly see this person jumping out to defend people and situations every chance they get to say that something is not racist. While doing all of the mental gymnastics that we've been discussing, this person is regularly used by white people as their past and their evidence that something isn't racist. I point this person's kindness out because I honestly don't think that they do it for the attention. There are definitely bad actors out there like Candice Owens, who do this for the money and the fame and the grift. But I don't think that's what we're seeing here. The problem is that when your entire persona in these debates is labeling things as not racist for white audiences, how will they ever know what is racist? For example, if I only taught my son what's right, how would he ever know what's wrong? That would be terrible parenting on my part. Why? Because there's an endless amount of wrong things that he could do if every time he said thank you or held a door open for someone and I told him that what he did was good. But I kept my mouth shut. If he just randomly ran up and punched people in the face, I would definitely be lacking in my parenting. So why is this so common with these black people who regularly tell white people what is not racist while refusing to tell them what is racist? What they're doing by not defining anything as racist is leaving the door wide open for plausible deniability. This is especially true when they're constantly giving excuses for these behaviors and trying to find every reason under the sun to label something as not racist. People see this and are just loading up on everything they believe they can do because these black people are giving them a pass and telling them that this isn't a problem. But what would happen if these black people who would never in a million years deny racism exists actually pointed to something and said that that right there. This example right here, that is racist, but they never do. The major issue is that these seemingly trivial acts of racism seep into so many places that create systemic issues. And what we're seeing is exactly what Bonilla Silva points out in his book. Quote, the central component of any dominant racial ideology is its frames or set paths for interpreting information. We're meant to believe that someone who creates a racist Twitter account to say racist things has never, ever, ever mistreated a person of color based on their race. How do you prove it? These people have created a burden of proof that is so impossibly high to reach. They never define racism and there's no way to actually prove that something is racist. Like think about this for a second. Let's say there's a white employer who never hires a single black person. Every single white person they hire is great at their job, went to a good college and everything else the employer wants. Just because they never hired a black person, how can you prove that they're being racist? I want you to really sit back, take just a minute and think about this. If you were a lawyer, how would you prove that that white employer who only hires white people is racist? Well, apparently, even if we found all of the racist things that this employer has said behind closed doors, that's still not enough. So are they just not racist? I have watched these black racism deniers and these racist people, everything they need and more to defend their awful behavior in the recent little mermaid nonsense discourse, we're seeing some wildly racist stuff happening. There is an endless amount of people that lose their minds every single time someone who isn't a straight white male is cast into a role. When you freak out every time a non white person is hired for anything, it's time to sit back and do some reflection. Meanwhile, I watched the black racism deniers say, well, Disney clearly just did this for the woke points. This logic is so utterly terrible. And it's just another weapon for the racist to use. And I'll be completely honest, I 100 percent think that Disney panders to the left by doing these diversity things. And why? Because they're a multi billion dollar company in our capitalist society that does not care about anything aside from increasing their share prices. But the reason that this logic is such a problem is that you could use that ridiculous logic all the time. What if you said this and use this logic every single time a black person got hired? Or what if we said that every single time these black racism deniers got hired? What if we shamed every single company every time they hired a black person by saying, you're just doing this for the woke points? Well, we would end up in a situation where no black people ever got hired. We'd end up back in the situation where you can't prove something is racist. How do you prove the company actually hired the black person on merit? Since meritocracy is nonsense and many people with the exact same qualifications don't get the same opportunities. How do you prove the white person didn't get the job over some arbitrary nonsense? Meanwhile, you have these black people telling white people, yes, you are correct. That black person right there. Well, they only got hired because of their skin color. Like, I really hope that you as the viewer are really starting to see this issue. When nothing is racist, people have free reign to do whatever they want while black people continue to suffer. Yes, things in this country are a lot better for black people compared to the past. But we're still dealing with so many systemic issues. I'm nowhere near done with this topic. But I think this is a foundation of so many other problems that we're still dealing with. These black people who deny racism are being used as tools in these smaller racism debates and is preventing us from making much larger changes that are needed to make our society more equal. It's an undeniable fact that black people are mistreated in this country. Black people receive longer sentences for committing the exact same crimes. Black people are denied credit and loans far more than white people, even though they make the same income. And there's just so much more to dive into. Every single time I bring up the systemic issues, there's a black person coming out of nowhere to try and figure out a way to justify the systemic issues by denying that racism exists. So next time and stay tuned. I'll discuss how I've witnessed these people change definitions just so they can ease their dissonance and live in their pretend world where racism doesn't exist. All right, everybody, that's all I got for this video. Thanks so much if you've made it all the way through. This is a topic, like I said, that has been on my mind just for so, so, so long. And I hope this all made sense. I'm really working on my writing and trying to explain these topics and what I'm noticing, like one of the things that motivates me to, you know, make any type of content, whether I'm writing or making a video is when I feel like something isn't being recognized or addressed. So let me know down in the comments. What do you think? What are your thoughts on this? Am I missing something? You know, because I want to make these better. And I love having conversations because I'm always trying to find, like, is there something that I am missing? You know what I mean? So leave a comment down below. But yeah, I have a bunch more videos and topics planned out, something that I'm trying to do. I'm trying to find a balance because there's so many things that I want to talk about, but not all of them get views like this one. I'm expecting isn't going to get any views. So if you could share it, spread it around. That'd be super helpful. Be very grateful for that. But yeah, if you're new here, make sure you subscribe because I have a lot more coming. And whether you're subscribed or not, make sure you follow me over on social media at The Rewired Soul. Because aside from, you know, making these videos, I also write a ton and do other types of content that way. You can find it over on social media when I post it. For example, this is actually something I wrote out like a week ago and released. So you get a little like preview because I usually upload these to substack. So make sure you're following me on social media. And I just love chatting with all of you, bouncing off ideas, seeing what you guys are talking about, everything like that. So follow me at The Rewired Soul over on Instagram and Twitter. And those of you who don't know, I love reading. I read hundreds of nonfiction books a year. And every Monday, I put out a reading list of all the books I finished from the previous week. Typically, I finished like four or five per week. So if you're a reader, you definitely don't want to miss those. All right. But anyways, that's all I got for this video. Thanks again so, so much for watching. Have an amazing rest of your day and I'll see you next time.