Facing up to my own racism

[Megalos]

I've always tried to acknowledge my innate racism and work on overcoming it. I was born into an incredibly privileged, entirely white family of impeccable pedigree so apart from an odd encounter with an over-zealous policeman during the Troubles, I have never faced any kind of exclusion. It also means that people of colour and/or separate religion were quite foreign to me until early adulthood.

I'm not sure if the highlighted opinion is your's or not but if it is your own, until you learn that there is no Pedigree, and that every man is born equal regardless of wealth etc, there is no hope for you losing your prejudices.

We are conditioned by our upbringing and by our experiences - but to what extent do we have to take responsibilities for our own prejudices?

By aportioning blame for who we are on our forebears has no legitimacy at all. There is certainly alot of propaganda/education out there for one to form his own opinion.

And how best to defeat them? How might we address this without losing the cultural values that define us as well -

It depends on what you perceive as a "cultural value".

-diversity being a good thing in my book.

Not sure what you mean entirely. This can be either taken as very contradictory (you think diversity is a good thing like being slightly racist which in essence is opposing diversity), or very enlightened (you have seen the error of your way's and now see diversity in everthing as a good thing).

Is interaction and dialogue the sole solution, or does one have to dig deeper into one's soul?

Well until you can engage in dialogue like you did with the man on the train, and see that for the most part your fears are baseless, there isn't much point in searching one's self for something that is not yet apparent.



Sorry for disecting your post, but there are many things I needed to clear up in my own head regarding your post as well as seeing where you are coming from.


No insults or hurt intended here on my part friend.


Mega

[naut]

I was born into an incredibly privileged, entirely white family of impeccable pedigree

This may be a bit off topic, but even without saying that, I got the sense you were by your use of the humankind collective "one", it's very typical of men who are middle-class to upper-class.

But, on topic, I think the fact you stopped and did a double take shows that you are in fact liberal. The fact you questioned your first, instinctive/"gut felling", shows strong rationality. Because, emotions are the default response to situations, they are universally human.

I can't really say how I'd respond though.