Telling the truth

Everyone hates racism ... in other people. It's really a leap for white feminists to ask ourselves if we, in any way, support white, male domination, which goes against what we have always thought of as our anti-racism. Spotted Elephant wrote these words (in her blogspot site, before she migrated to wordpress) in 2006 (she's currently on blogging-hiatus):

"As a White American, I cannot say that I'm NOT a racist--my privilege prevents that from being the truth." (caps mine)

There were 5 or 6 comments to spotted elephant's post, and the interesting thing is, that they run the gamut, from the blogger who OWNS racism within herself
-- "no one is racism free, no one"
to bloggers who mention other white people's racism, but don't address Spotted Elephant's assertion that our white privilege means we, whites, are all, in some way, racists.
-- "the bigotry some of my white students"
-- "my own encounters with racism"
-- "my first experience with racism"
-- "my town is racist"

Soooo ..... I think it's time for me to just bite this bitter bullet, and say this:

"I am 55 years old; I was brought up to be a racist, I've been a racist, and I still am. I am. I'm working to lessen my racism, and I need to speed it up. I'm sorry it's taken me 55 years to know it. I probably still have time left to work harder for justice."

Ok, onward. (That wasn't nearly as hard to say as I expected it to be.)