I’m sure most of us are familiar with the popular phrase, “I’m not racist, but…”

Coined as a common sentence-starter for opinionated people, it has become a disclaimer for comments that are most likely offensive to a person of a different race. Even in an aftermath of tragedies all across the U.S from acts of hate, prejudice and violence, people still flood the Internet with opinions and insensitive comments just to prove a point. Much of the ignorance can be seen on social media—such as ranting about who everyone should vote for, arguing against Black Lives Matter, or even giving condolences to marginalized groups of people, yet still not supporting their lifestyle choices.

It proves that even after all this time, there is still a huge divide in America and the problem is, many are still blind to it. Like racism for example, and why so many people back up their blatantly racist opinion with “I’m not racist but…,” only to follow with a contradicting thought. It’s seems as if there is a certain intuition that leads people to spout off a defense before saying something clearly opinionated.

The phrase has become a buffer for people with prejudice opinions who prefer to deliver their message light-heartedly to alleviate a conversation. According to psychologists, it’s also commonly used by people whose opinions embody the idea of unconscious racism.

The unconscious mind—also known as the subconscious—is defined as the brain’s “complex of mental activities within an individual that proceed without awareness.”

What began as Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory of personality, dividing the mind into two parts: the conscious and the unconscious, has now evolved into complex psychological theories and analyses of what’s actually behind the subliminal cognition of the brain.

What’s interesting about the idea of unconscious racism within the subconscious mind is the actual volume it speaks. It’s not surprising to know that sometimes words are reactions from the brain and are not always well thought-out, but it is a bit shocking to know many people who truly bear racially prejudice thoughts—don’t even realize they are doing it.

According to the American Psychological Association (APA), the long-time fascination of studying the unconscious mind has changed from Freud’s original concept of unconsciousness “seething with aggression and sexuality,” to exploring the notion of intuitive decisions and “presumptions, perceptions and beliefs that are more or less instantaneous, rather than derived and reasoned.”

The APA reported studies conducted by various psychologists and researchers working to understand natural judgements produced by the unconscious mind.

Psychologist Seymour Epstein, Ph.D., developed his “cognitive experiential self-theory” in the 1970s to interpret the two systems of the brain. He noted that intuition and split-second judgements can lead us to both accurately navigate the world, yet sometimes lead us astray, and he concludes that it all reflects on conditioning.

“Intuition is just the things we’ve learned without realizing we’ve learned them,” he said. “A person who’s learned through past experiences to like and trust other people might have very different social intuitions than someone who’s learned to fear and distrust others.”

A Huffington Post article written in 2011 by John A. Powell, Director of the Haas Institute for a Fair andInclusive Society and Professor of Law, African American and Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley discusses how the unconscious mind affects people’s institutional and cultural interactions in society.

He notes that only 2% of cognitive and emotional processes are actually conscious and that is even impacted by what’s going on in the other 98%.

“Any given employer, or landlord, might look at an African American candidate, refuse to hire her or rent to her, and honestly say that race was not a consideration,” Powell said. “But that response is only reporting information that is available in the conscious 2% of the mind—the processes in the other 98% may be harboring racial resentments and stereotypes that impact choices made.”

He also added, the hypothetical employer or landlord denying a person of the opposite race doesn’t necessarily mean they are unconsciously racist. Though the mind often has conflicting thoughts, and the conscious thoughts may differ from implicit ones—the intuitive nature of unconscious racism all depends on how your ideas were subconsciously shaped growing up.

Psychologist and Professor at University of Illinois, Mikhail Lyubansky, Ph.D., published a blog post on Psychology Today addressing this idea that unconscious racism is not always by people who are intentionally racist. In fact, many people who are unconsciously prejudice actually don’t realize their bias.

Lyubansky quoted Professor Powell from the W.K Kellogg Foundation America Healing Conference held in 2012. As a panelist, he explained a break-down of the brain’s “three types of not knowing.”

1. What we can't know—like how many neurons are firing at any given moment

2. What we don't care to know—like the color of a car we pass at a particular intersection

3. What we don't want to know

“When we talk about racism, we usually talk about #2 and #3," Powell said, “when there’s tension between conscious and unconscious drives, the unconscious usually wins.”

Lyubansky conveyed data from an Institute of Medicine report regarding racial bias in healthcare as well as examples presented by a UCLA psychology professor regarding unconscious bias in law enforcement.

He reported, “Over 80% of incidents that involved police use of deadly force were preceded by threat to the officers’ masculinity.”

“Racism, it turns out, is not necessarily perpetrated by racists, but by people who feel threatened for other reasons and are not aware of their racial bias,” he added.

Lyubansky explained that unless people intentionally go out of their way to become aware of their own bias, it is likely to come out at the wrong time, “like during a stressful traffic stop (in the case of a law enforcement officer) or during a medical emergency in the ER.”

Amongst the long-time research and common psychological studies of the unconscious and how it effects societal interactions, overall, these studies unanimously show that it is important to address this reality.

Open-minded education is key when communicating opinions to one another. Especially to prevent anymore racist disclaimers in conversations like “I’m not racist, but…” If something is unaddressed, it remains unnoticed.

People only fear the unknown because the truth is sometimes too frightening to face