Americans deny racial habits because they work unnoticed and unrecognized

Evidence

Much of our national conversation and actions around race in this country deny the existence of racial habits. On the one hand, that denial reflects their effectiveness. They do their work unnoticed. On the other hand, Americans are often willfully blind to how those habits work—we don’t want to see the racial inequalities all around us. Of course, most Americans acknowledge the wrongness of racist acts, and some give voice to the aspiration of a color-blind society. But neither view recognizes the racial habits that make possible our embrace of the ideas of equality and our comfort with persistent racial inequality. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 176

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies what distinguishes racial habits from acknowledged racists acts and color-blind aspiration.