THREAD: Here's the thing about racism in North America.

It's only a little bit about hurling rude epithets about skin colour. That’s barely the tip of the sword.

Racism is conditioning. It's impulse.

It’s the impulse to remain silent on social media about police murdering an unarmed black man, and then loudly and unequivocally denouncing the black rioters during the aftermath.

It’s the impulse to scour the internet, searching for reasons why the unarmed black man _deserved_ to be killed by the police.

It’s the impulse to shout “All Lives Matter” but only in response to hearing some one claim that Black Lives Matter.

It’s the impulse to demand “What about black on black crime?” in response to reading about the many racially motivated white-on-black hate crimes.

It's the impulse to cherry-pick MLK quotes to silence and denounce black people who attempt to explain the nuances and circumstances that could possibly justify rioting, while remaining silent during sports event rioting.

It’s the impulse to deny clearly racist dogwhistles like “Thugs”, because you’ve also heard the term applied to a white person.

It’s the impulse to claim and believe “I can’t be racist, I have black friends/spouse” in response to being called out for racist behaviour, as if the association alone exonerates you.

It's the impulse to claim and believe "I can't be racist because I'm liberal, progressive and/or woke" as if sharing clickbait Huffpost articles and performing politically left in public somehow exonerates you.

It's the impulse to believe "I can't be racist because I'm educated" as if the most educated country in the western world didn't commit the world's most horrible genocide.

It’s the impulse to deny a meaningful racial wealth gap, because oh look Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan are multi-millionaires.

It’s the impulse to claim “race shouldn’t matter” to silence any discussion about how support people of colour specifically.

It's the impulse to yell "get your politics out of my art" when the new Star Wars movie features a black stormtrooper.

It’s the impulse to withdraw from difficult conversations about racism, because you don't experience racial inequality, therefore it must be exaggerated.

It's the impulse to seek some sort of meritocratic justification for why black people are so disproportionately incarcerated.

It’s the impulse to spend your energy attacking someone who called your behaviour racist, rather than listening and internalizing, difficult as that may be.

And finally:
It’s the core belief that your silence and neutrality somehow does not contribute to racial injustice.

Silence is effectively violence.