Dr. Barbara Trepagnier, author of Silent Racism: How Well-Meaning White People Perpetuate the Racial Divide, spoke in the Mass Media and Technology Hall Auditorium last Thursday, October 22, 2009 to a super-packed house of both students, faculty and community members. Her presentation was astounding and bold. She suggests that everyone is a little bit racist, whether we mean to be or not, and instead of trying to define what being racist means, or trying to find out who is racist and who isn’t, we all just need to be more racially aware.

Trapagnier suggests that we increase our racial awareness, meaning that we pay closer attention to how the minorities around us may be feeling and also keeping in mind that “racism has a connection to everybody’s life.” There has been a shift in paradigm about racism. Racism as we consider it is blatant and brash, like the pre-civil rights era, loaded with KKK and third reich symbolism. Instead, the racism that we predominantly deal with today is very silent and subtle. Trepagnier suggests that this is normal and it plays into our awareness of racial reality but that it is still our responsibility to interrupt racism when we come across it. The moment that we consider ourselves and our communities above racism, we risk ignoring race all-together, which, in an idealized world, would eradicate racism, but in reality only heightens it. Check out the short video above to watch Trapagnier’s discussion about

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