Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
Racism is a part of daily life in America, whether it is as overt as people marching around in Klan uniforms or as subtle as someone making passive-aggressive negative comments about Black people in our presence.
As much as we want to give most white people the benefit of the doubt, there usually comes a time when even our faves (or their siblings) disappoint us by saying something so outlandishly racist it’s hard to ignore.
I had a recent experience on Facebook with a former co-worker who I always thought was just a nice older white lady. She showed up in the comments of one of my posts and completely showed her ass, and she doubled, tripled and quadrupled down on her ignorance even when she was called out by her fellow white people.
It was insane to watch, but it was a reminder that for a lot of white people, their instinctive racism and implicit bias are hiding there under their skin just like an itch waiting for the right scratch to set it off.
Sometimes, however, there isn’t anything to set it off; they are just racist, and maybe they have done a good job hiding up until now. Maybe senility kicks in and makes them forget about trying to hide it.
That’s what I am telling myself happened with Ben Stein.
Ben Stein is an author, a former speechwriter for presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford; the valedictorian of his 1970 Yale Law School class; and according to his website, he…
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