The more afraid we are of the shadow of racism, the more conscious we might become of our own unsuspected biases.
Interpretation
Fear of racism can lead to greater self-awareness of our own biases.
This quote suggests that when we acknowledge and confront our fears regarding racism, we open ourselves up to recognizing and understanding our own implicit biases. Rather than hiding from the issue, facing these fears can promote personal growth and awareness about how we perceive and treat others.
In practice
During a diversity training session, this quote can be shared to inspire participants to reflect on their own biases.
I routinely interview college students, mostly from top schools, and I notice that their brains are like old maps, with lots of blank spaces for the uncharted terrain. It's not that they lack for motivation or IQ. It's that they can't connect the dots when they don't know where the dots are in the first place.
The most interesting conversation is not about why Donald Trump lies. Many public figures lie, and he's only a severe example of a common type. The interesting conversation concerns how we come to accept those lies.
We live in a world in which data convey authority. But authority has a way of descending to certitude, and certitude begets hubris.
The American birthright belongs, potentially, to everyone. This is unprecedented. Other countries accept migrants on the basis of economic necessity or as a humanitarian gesture. Only in America is it the direct consequence of our foundational ideals.
How beautiful the world was when one looked at it, without searching... just looked, simply and innocently.
I kept running around it in large or small circles, always looking for someone or something able to convince me of my Belovedness. Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the "Beloved". Being the Beloved expresses the core truth of our existence.
Of what a strange nature is knowledge! It clings to a mind when it has once seized on it like a lichen on a rock." - Frankenstein p115
Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.
Despotism has so often been established in the name of liberty that experience should warn us to judge parties by their practices rather than their preachings.
[In the aftermath of death] Small talk feels too small, big talk too enormous.
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