and this is so true. I think it’s more about ones experience and ones ability to articulate the intricacies of something so complex. I teach middle to high school students. I also live in Portland, Oregon (land of the well-intentioned liberal). I love Portland, don’t get me wrong, but many people here often can’t that which is going on right in their face–even if it is happening to them. A talk to Black students all the time about whether racism exists and if they experience it. Most times, high schoolers on down are only able to recognize overt acts of racism. They haven’t had the exposure to understanding the complexities of structural and institutional racism which is much more prevalent today than the overt stuff.

One of the dangers of people seeing or not seeing in this case, is that when they have to work harder than someone that’s privileged to get the same result or even worse if they fail, they often look inward and blame themselves. They then see their failure as a lack of ability and adequacy. They buy into the media and politically driven romanticized dream of meritocracy–your ability to succeed in this life is solely based on your determination and how hard you work. Being determined and working hard are excellent traits, but this view totally discounts circumstances. So if you were born into a family where your parents barely, if at all, graduated from high school, they couldn’t help you with your homework past the 7th grade, they didn’t have the social and cultural skills that this money driven society rewards to pass on to you, so what! You ended up working a menial job, not because of circumstances, but because you weren’t determined enough and didn’t work hard enough. You see how insidious this can be? It makes me sad when I hear young people from any people group say that racism, classism, sexism, etc…are gone. At least for the students of color and poor students, I know that internalized oppression waits around the corner.