Why White People Don't See Racism: Explaining the disconnect between Black and white Americans

Next week I will participate in a racial discrimination hearing against a Manhattan night club that frisked and searched me when I attended on a "Black night" but does not search patrons on mostly white nights.

Last week, I was accused of stealing an iPhone by a white woman in Miami who came up to me and asked if she could search my pockets to find it. It was not a joke or a pickup line.

And just last month, I had to pull out my own iPhone to photograph and report the license plate and medallion number of a taxicab driver in New York's Union Square who refused to pick me up and then drove across the street to pick up a white customer seconds later.

For many African-Americans, I suspect these stories aren't entirely surprising. As President Obama said last week, racism is a daily part of our lives. Like air and water, it's part of the environment in which we live. Yet far too many white Americans still live in denial about its persistence.

That's the conclusion to be drawn not just from anecdotal experience but from a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll out Wednesday that showed a vast disparity between white and Black perceptions on race relations. The poll, conducted after George Zimmerman was acquitted for shooting unarmed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, found that 52 percent of whites think race relations are "good" in America while 58 percent of Blacks describe race relations as "bad."

The new poll numbers follow similar results from a Washington Post-ABC News poll two days earlier. In that poll, 86 percent of Blacks disapproved of the Zimmerman verdict while only 31 percent of whites felt that way. Even more disappointing is that 86 percent of African-Americans say Blacks and other minorities do not get equal treatment under the law, while only 41 percent of whites think that's true.

Years ago, I heard a law professor explain what I call the "magnet analogy." Remember those big red and silver horseshoe magnets from high school? Now imagine you had to walk around the world with a huge horseshoe magnet on your neck. Aside from the heavy burden of carrying the extra weight, you'd quickly see the world a lot differently from those without the magnet.

The first thing you'd notice – there's a lot of metal in the world. Keys, coins, cell phones, even appliances would suddenly get a lot more of your attention. Why? Because the magnet attracts them. But those without the magnet would continue to remain oblivious to the metal assault on your body.

That's the experience for African-Americans every day. We're surrounding and inundated by the metal of racism while those who do not carry the magnet of Blackness remain oblivious to our experience. To them, racism is a thing of the past.

The problem is we need to recognize how new and subtle forms of race bias have replaced the old overt acts of racial discrimination. Maya Wiley of the Center for Social Inclusion explains how brain science has identified subconscious racial bias taking place in "nanoseconds" at subliminal levels. "There's something that police officers and college students and George Zimmerman all have in common," she told MSNBC's Melissa Harris Perry recently. "And that is that they're more likely to shoot a black man with a wallet than they are to shoot a white man with a gun." They call it "shooter bias."

Unfortunately, our laws and our public discourse haven't kept up with the changes in racism. Many whites are still stuck in the 1960s image of overt bigotry, of Klansmen burning crosses and segregationist governors blocking schoolhouse doors. They may know a parent or a grandparent who still uses the N-word, but as long as they refrain from using it themselves then they can't possibly be racist, they think.

But Paula Deen aside, modern racism isn't really about the N-word. New code words like Detroit, Chicago, "Stand Your Ground," voter ID, food stamps and welfare now carry the same impact with dog whistle messages too subtle to be reported by many in the media. This seemingly race-neutral language allows the majority to engage in public discourse under the mantle of innocence and thus dismiss the vestiges and effects of hundreds of years of legally sanctioned white supremacy. The only racists in this vision are the people who complain about racism.

That's why the U.S. Supreme Court eviscerated the Voting Rights Act last month and argued it had outlived its utility. And that's why George Zimmerman's defense attorney Mark O'Mara last week told Fox News's Sean Hannity that his client, a known killer with a long arrest record, was just a "meek, mild guy without a racist bone in his body."

If you kill an unarmed Black boy or fan the flames of white resentment on talk radio, you're a "patriot." But if you help the family of the young Black boy who was killed, you're a "race hustler." To be white in America allows you the freedom to remain oblivious to these distinctions.

Yes, this dialogue must be a two-way conversation. But until white Americans examine their own racial privilege and open their eyes to the experience of Black Americans, they'll never notice the magnet we carry every day.

Keith Boykin is a New York Times best-selling author and former White House aide to President Clinton. He attended Harvard Law School with President Barack Obama and currently serves as a TV political commentator. He writes political commentary for BET.com each week.

If blacks were not responsible for over half of all violent crimes, then whites might not think that so many blacks are criminals.

This is a conversation about race in America. Logic and facts are against the rules.

Speaking of, an author at The Root just wrote an article outlining the official rules for this allegedly honest conversation about race that numerous black people keep calling for. Here are those official rules...

The Root's Race Talk Ground Rules (July 24, 2013)

So, if we're going to have a "conversation on race," I offer this nonexhaustive list of ground rules and reminders. It's based on my hope that we can retire some of the predictable talking points and misleading themes that do nothing but derail the type of dialogue that's been called for once again.

1. Talking about race isn't racist. Don't say that. Vilifying people who discuss race and point out racism -- making them the bad guys -- is one of the ways racism is maintained. So is acting as if "blacks suffer from racism" and "whites suffer from reverse racism" are equally valid points of view.

2. Yep, sometimes there are different standards for black and white stuff. You are going to get a different reaction for White History Month and Black History Month. A black person making a joke about race is different from a white person making a joke about race. To accept this requires letting go of the idea that this is really simple and thinking a little deeper about context and history. Please give up on the "But what if the races were reversed?" line of thinking. That type of analysis makes conversations simple, but it also makes them totally unhelpful.

3. African Americans are not monolithic. There is not one black experience or black point of view, and -- surprise -- black people are individuals who don't agree on everything and shouldn't have to answer for one another's actions, any more than white people do. (So saying a black person can't dislike the n-word because rappers use it doesn't make sense. The person who stated an objection and the person who wrote the rap don't actually share a brain.)

4. Remember that while "race" itself isn't real, racism is, and our country's long and well-documented history with racism has very real, lasting effects. Therefore, being "colorblind" is not helpful because it cripples our ability to deal with the tangible effects of racial inequality in just about every area of life.

5. Black people shouldn't have to fit your definition of what's respectable to deserve equality or justice. It's silly and unfounded to blame inequality caused by institutionalized racism on, say, sagging pants or rap music. If you want to celebrate black people who are educated and high-achieving and defy persistent stereotypes, great, but that can't be a requirement for fair treatment. We got into trouble with this type of thinking when evidence that Trayvon Martin was a normal teenager messed up so many people's impression of him as a sympathetic victim.

6. Don't defer to people like Bill Cosby about their theories about black people, any more than you would defer to a miscellaneous white celebrity about how white people are doing. If you need guidance, look for someone whose background offers evidence that he or she had the incentive to spend some time seeking information and thinking critically in a professional capacity about whatever it is the person is discussing.

7. Individual racism and systemic racism are two different things. We should care about all the structures that maintain racial inequality, not just individual actors. (This is why it's not unreasonable to jump from George Zimmerman's impression of Trayvon Martin to racial profiling by police.) That said, individual acts can provide strong reminders about larger attitudes and problems. Ahem, Paula Deen. Ahem.

8. Don't give the word "racism" so much power that you can't speak rationally after you hear it. Remember that the threshold for "racism" is a lot lower than being a member of the KKK and hating every black person you see. It means buying into and perpetuating things that support the idea of white supremacy. You can be a very nice person and still do that, even without meaning to. You can do it even if you have black friends.

9. Resist the urge to believe and regurgitate myths about black people, even when they're promoted by black people (African Americans are all more homophobic, black-on-black crime is uniquely bad, there are more black men in prison than in college, all black women love being fat, etc.). Take a minute to challenge the things you hear many say over and over. You'll often find they don't have a strong basis in reality.

10. Finally, stop thinking about and discussing racism as something that's the problem of black and other nonwhite people. Remember that there's an ever-growing movement of anti-racist white people concerned with dismantling white privilege. When you're talking about racism, remember that it's not just bad for those whom it oppresses; it's bad for everyone because it creates an unjust society. When people want to fix racism, they do it not because they're being charitable or nice, but because they're being smart and decent.

Well, Keith, it isn't white people killing young black men in Chicago at an alarming rate, it's other black men. White people don't force young black men and women to be sexually promiscuous, have a series of illegitimate children they cannot support and then seek 'welfare' to pay for them, almost guaranteeing a life of poverty. White people haven't made a black child getting an education disdainfully called 'acting white', black people have done that. White people don't sell CD filth to young blacks using the dreaded 'N word' over and over while 'rapping' about how cool it is to 'do' drugs, commit crimes and abuse women. Rich black 'artists' (like 'Jay Z') do that.

I can't help but notice that most of the super-rich black athletes and performers in America rarely live anywhere near the 'mean streets' they pretend they love so much. Most live in huge, gaudy mansions far from any ghetto. Still, they pretend they too are 'victims' of white racism, all the while living like the multimillionaires they are in the land that made their wealth possible because millions of white people paid to buy their CDs, watch their movies or TV show or watch them play a sport.

Like most on FR, I'm about fed up with the whining from too many black Americans about slavery that ended 150 years ago. They refuse to take responsibility for their own bad choices in life while blaming the consequences of those choices on some imagined systemic bias in 'white' society. Its long since past time for whites to stop cowering in the face of being called a 'racist' simply for telling blacks the truth. Let's start with the clownish 'Reverend' Al Sharpton.

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