The Washington Post recently reported on an incident in which a high school teacher in Oklahoma said the following in an elective philosophy course.

"Am I racist? And I say yeah. I don't want to be. It's not like I choose to be racist, but do I do things because of the way I was raised? To be white is to be racist, period."

After a student in the class sent a recording of this lecture to Oklahoma's news channel, KFOR, the teacher has come under fire and the entire incident has become quite controversial. While some students enjoyed and defended the teacher's lecture, other students were very unhappy with it.

One offended student told KFOR the following, "I felt like he was encouraging people to kind of pick on people for being white... You start telling someone something over and over again that's an opinion, and they start taking it as fact."

Hmm...

But you see, offended student, that's exactly right. Reinforcing an opinion over and over again leads it to be confused as fact. For example, when I was a young white child, a girl, and people warned me of stranger danger, there was a certain image that was referenced. It wasn't explicit; rather, it was quite subtle. It was the person whom their eyesight focused on when they reminded me to be careful of strangers, and it was the image that I saw again and again represented as the "bad guy" in television shows and movies. Nobody ever explicitly told me, a young white girl, that I should be afraid of black men. And yet, that bias, that opinion that others held, was subtly taught to me as I grew up.

There's a reason that now, as a young adult woman, I become anxious and alert when an unknown black man is walking toward me. A black man has never hurt me. A black man has never threatened me. However, the systems in our society are set up to demonize black men. And I was raised in this society. The people in my life and the media that I engaged with, without intent and in most cases with the opposite intent, taught me the racist biases that we as a society, as a country, hold.

As a white American, I am privileged. The racist systems in our society are set up in a way that benefits me, and all white people, while disadvantaging people of color. I recognize that, and it's important that I do. I have never consciously, purposely or actively been racist toward another human being. That does not mean that I am not racist. Or sexist. Or homophobic.

When this high school teacher says that "to be white is to be racist," he is not saying that white people are inherently bad. He is saying that white people are raised with privilege - privilege that we often don't notice. We see it as normal, because it has always been given to us. But our privilege hurts those without it.

I do not want to be racist. I do not try to be racist. I do not use racial slurs or purposefully exclude those of other races from my life. And yet, I am racist.

In every moment that I benefit from societal systems that give me opportunities that are denied from others, and I say nothing, I am racist. In every instance that I feel fear toward a group of people that has never done anything to harm me, I am racist. At times that I, without thinking, cross the street to avoid walking near people who look unlike me, I am racist.

In order to not be racist, we have to accept that we are. We have to recognize the history of our country and how that has shaped the values we hold, the messages we hear, the systems we create, and the identities that we recognize. Our own biases are tricky because they are hidden. We need to find them and we need to acknowledge them.

In order to not be racist, we have to admit to our own biases and intentionally act against them. Doing nothing, acting as we always have, and refusing to accept our unconscious racism gives the green light for racism to live on in our society.

To not be racist means to consciously, intentionally and actively analyze our behaviors and opinions, and reject those that are influenced by our internal biases. It means that when that black man walks toward me, I accept the anxious feelings that come, understand that these are a result of my own bias, and recognize that that bias is not based on fact or experience. It means consciously making an effort to treat everyone equally, regardless of race. Or sex, or gender, or sexuality. And it means recognizing when I fail to do this, feeling disappointed in myself, and making a point to change my behavior in the future.

The high school teacher in Oklahoma was not encouraging others to pick on people for being white. Rather, he was encouraging white people to recognize their own unconscious and yet existing racism, and actively fight against it.