If we become too invested in seeing ourselves as "not racist" we deny ourselves the ability to see how we have absorbed these ideas and the ways in which we support the settler colonial project.

This is as true of BIPOC as it is of whiteness.

BIPOC have a hard time with this conversation because we fear being met with a chorus of Karen's and Kyle's screaming about reverse racism, and they might.

But why does their response matter? They have already decided they are "not racist" and that they are our victims.

But until we confront the ways in which we have all absorbed these ideas and recognize that this absorption is inevitable we will never become what we could be.

The problem isn't in absorbing racist ideas about Black and Indigenous people. The fault is in our insistence that we are "not racist" and cutting ourselves off from growth. Seeing these things as an isolated incident of bad behaviour.