I’m also a black/ biracial woman who was adopted by a white family but I was adopted by white conservative Republicans in the South. I’ve had the unique experience of growing up with a non-racist white conservative family. Do they unknowingly hold white supremacist viewpoints, absolutely. But the most important key thing about my mother’s side of the family is that they don’t believe in race. Somehow somewhere in my family’s past history they figured out that race was invented and since the 1960s as far as I can tell they just don’t buy into the myth of race. Which is extraordinary because it took me a few years to get to the point where I was 100% sure that race was not based on anthropology or sound science. The problem was not with my family but with the 95% white religious private school I attended. I was there from the ages of 4–18. There were plenty of decent amazing individuals at that school but way too many racists. It’s not as if the school was to blame per se. Most of the administration receive the same misinformation our government has been putting out about race for centuries. All of that aside I use to think exactly like you Ian when I was fresh out of that 95% white school. In high school I had finally absorbed the message that I was to view black people as inferior. The lie was that their culture was the culprit. I experienced horrible racism as a child at the hands of a few female teachers at that school. But while I was trying very hard to balance on the tightrope of white approval I pushed down the memories of racism. You saying you never saw racism growing up is a sentiment I hear often from other people of color. Just the other day I saw a comment from someone claiming to be a Mexican American. He was upset by an article pointing out racism and he sounded offended at the idea that he was oppressed. It’s really an ego thing that animates this conversation of race at all. White people need to work harder to educate other white people about race. Not just about racism but about what the American Anthropological Association said about race in 1998. They put out a statement flat out denying the myth of species within the human race since that is part of what racism actually is. Dividing humans into different species based on nothing more arbitrary than melanin production. Our cosmetic differences do not dictate our actions. In the 1950s the UN also released their findings that race was a myth. The UK as well as many other European countries have kept up with science. We do not see the same pervasive level of ignorance from Europeans as we do from European Americans. The question I find myself constantly pondering is why does it seem like the US is so bent on creating a failing education system? Yet when I look at other European run countries the opposite seems to be the case. What is it about our leadership in the United States that has brought us here? Why can I point to numerous examples of European run societies anywhere but on US soil with well educated citizen who are much less likely to buy into ridiculous outdated theories of race and species? The myth of race is the corrupting idea that influences racism and until the myth dies racism will always be with us. Everyone seems to wonder these days why racism is so persistent without ever fully admitting race or species within the human race is a myth. The problem is that white people have been socialized around a lie. They were made to believe they were a separate race. Often times since childhood along with the rest of us who were incorrectly told the same thing. This is a lie it has no basis in science. All the old bias pseudo scientific theories propping race/racism up was debunked in the 1950s. So what I and many other people of all melanin production levels in the US should be asking ourselves is why don’t we know this ? Why is this information something I had to stumble on in my mid 20s after years of internalized racism and depression relating to a mythical concept? Why are cops enforcing it as true? Why is the US census department continuing to put out racial categories as if they actually exist? Why hasn’t any of the major influential white governing bodies in the West officially read the American Anthropology/UN statement debunking race theory ? Do they not think this would be a great time to do so? I find myself pondering the opposite of your conclusion. It is not that all white people act out racism it is that most of them believe in race. I can tell you from growing up in my family I have zero memories of racism from my mother’s side of the family. Never once was I treated different or “othered.” This is obviously how it should be but I can draw a direct link between white people who don’t believe in the myth of race and how they treat “non white people” It’s why Jane Elliot is one of the few white allies who is actually an ally. She seems radical to many but the sad case is that she is actually just well educated about race. The sad fact that to be a white person who is fully educated about the myth of race and how it animates racism is to be a radical is a sad state of affairs. As a biracial woman raised almost exclusively around white people I’m going to have to call BS on that statement. Most white people do believe in the myth of race and thus participate in perpetuating racism. I had to realize that my white family was the anomaly when it came to their understanding of race. Now that I’m much older I can see there was an awful lot of Jane Elliot in my grandmother and vice versa. Perhaps I really was just lucky enough to be one of the few black people in the US adopted by a “non racist”white family. Unfortunately the rest of the white society I was raised in had the opposite affect on me manifesting itself as self hatred in my early teens. To think that at home I was living the opposite of what the government and most of white society tries to teach. Yet still I was so heavily influenced by all the racists outside of my family home. I am just now coming to grips with how the system in the US is literally tailored to turn a person into a racist or a white supremacist. It knows no bounds. Asians, Latinos, Africans, African Americans all seem to have fallen victim to the same pervasive lie of species/ race. While simultaneously worshipping whiteness and white supremacy. It is impossible to have racism without the hierarchy of race. Since most white people and non white people typically unknowingly cling to a myth that animates racist attitudes. There can be no honest conversation about race/ racism in this country or elsewhere.