Everybody's A Little Bit Racist?

Am I a little bit racist? This was the question I found myself asking after a friend had me listen to a song by a group parodying various children's songs. The song entitled "Everybody's a Little Bit Racist" made fun of all the racial stereotypes that people choose to hold as truths. After thinking the song absolutely hilarious, I moved on to weighing the truths it held.

Racism - as defined by Merriam-Webster - means "a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race." One race being "inherently superior" is one theory I do not subscribe to. While I do not believe that there is an inherent difference between races, I do believe that there are noticeable cultural differences and groups of generally accepted social mores that differ between races. It may well be that people who fall into the black hole of racism are those who are unwilling to explore and embrace these differences.

Through conversations with people of other races, and even those in my own race, I have discovered that while there is not an ounce of true racism in me, there unfortunately is a little bit of "something." A little something that has me using the term "us" and "you people" when speaking about race with a white friend - not a malicious "us" and "you people," but one signifying a division nonetheless.

From the trivial differences like body image issues that have prepubescent black girls praying that they grow rounded backsides, while white girls at the same time go on diets and shop for padded bras, to the very real feeling of a sense of shared community between African-Americans - a community into which other cultures are generally not included. This is a sense of a community filled with soul and sorrow that goes back to the "us" versus "them" point-of-view from the era of slavery and The Civil Rights Movement.

If this is true - if black people's side of the "us" versus "them" phenomena stems from the feeling of family during the fight for freedom and equality - can it then be assumed that white people's side of this occurrence stems from a residual sense of superiority? Could it be the same sense superiority that justified slavery with the belief that it was the white man's job to take care of this lesser race of humans?

My uncle's outburst at seeing Justin Timberlake on television illustrated a bit of something - that not-quite-racist but not-just-trivial stereotype bit of something.

"What is that white boy doing on BET? Can't black people have anything for themselves?"

My friend's roommate's comment on football positions had that little bit of something.

"Do you know why you don't see many black quarterbacks? Because quarterback is a thinking man's position."

Haven't we all thought things even remotely similar at some point even if we dared not say it aloud? Or laughed when someone else did? Are we all guilty of having that little bit of something?

After a week of mulling this over, I've still not come up with a definition for that something. Perhaps the definition differs for each individual. It might be possible that race relations will never be truly improved until we all explore ourselves and find our little something and dispel it.

The best way to do that is to become familiar with as many people of different races as possible. Maybe my uncle would see that white people can enjoy and take part in the "soul" of our music and my friend's roommate might become aware that - though we sometimes choose to use slang terms plagued with grammatical errors - black people can be just as smart as everyone else.