I begin this writing with a painful admission, especially as a higher education professional. I was raised in a community that made racists feel comfortable to share their beliefs. Thankfully, my parents were not among them—I never once heard my mother or father judge someone by their skin color or nationality—but other community members, and sadly even other family members, regularly made comments about the propensity of entire races for laziness or theft or ignorance. Raised in the rural midwest, I had limited opportunity early on to let experience conquer stereotypes. I knew, though, the labels did not describe the admittedly few non-white students who attended my elementary school. When I felt uncomfortable hearing these comments and would ask my parents why even some family members talked this way, I was told, “That’s just who they are. We can’t change them, but we love them anyway.”
I did love my family deeply. I loved them with all of their flaws as I hoped they loved me with mine, but as I furthered my education, more discomfort would follow. I would feel it when we studied historical events such as slavery, Apartheid, and the Holocaust, and I realized the horrors that humanity was capable of. I would feel it when we studied more recent injustices such as new redlining, racial profiling, and hate crimes, and I had to acknowledge that humanity hadn’t fixed itself and not everyone wanted it to.