Cyrus Lee

Dr. Joseph Gavin Paul

The Problem of Implicit Racism

several decades ago. Explicit racism, while still witnessed, occurs much less often thanks to the

developments mankind has made to social decorum. However, implicit racism, while less

apparent on a first glance, is an issue that still plagues almost all of America to this day, an issue

that Ta-Nehisi Coates drags out from behind the curtain of America’s façade of perfection in

Between the World and Me.

Implicit racism—the less noticed offspring of blatant discrimination. To understand and

analyze Coates’ exploration of it, one must first define it. Implicit racism lurks in the depths of

one’s subconscious mind. It is one’s innate assumption that another race is inferior to their own

race, without actually harboring feelings of disdain or contempt towards the targeted race. Its

presence is so subtle that an individual harboring sentiment of implicit racism would never admit

to it, yet when one questions them as to why it is so impressive and worth mentioning that a

black man became a mayor or president, no one will be able to procure an adequate response.

Implicit racism is nowhere near as harmful as the discrimination that once plagued

America. However, its implications, the way it bleeds into one’s thoughts and actions is a

constant testimony to its dark predecessor, a constant reminder to the treatment African

Americans once had to endure. There are several examples hidden away in the work’s passages,

the first one being the “…picture of an eleven-year-old black boy tearfully hugging a white

police officer. Then [the interviewer] asked me about ‘hope’. And I knew then that I had failed…

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and I wondered again at the indistinct sadness welling up in me.” (10). There should not be a

major fuss over a child hugging an adult during a crisis; children get scared, and they are

subconsciously drawn to those older than them as a consolation mechanism. Yet there is a fuss

raised, because the boy is black. This fundamental belief that being black equates to the boy

being any different is the first factor that saddens Coates. An America truly free from racism

would not spare a second glance at a black boy being hugged by a white man, hope would not be

needed as hope meant that something needed fixing, that something was out of the norm.

Hope is generally a term associated with the future. That is the second saddening factor.

The interviewer, symbolically speaking for the American people, sees only the improvements

American society has made to combatting racism. They deign to turn a blind eye to all the

atrocities they committed in the past, trivializing black history to nothing more than “…the

bemused manner of a category of Trivial pursuit. Serious history was the West, and the West was

white’ (43). America fails, or merely refuses to acknowledge the fact that they are responsible

for everything the blacks had to endure to this day, almost as if they are unable to accept the

reality that they too, are not as perfect as they perceive themselves to be. Perhaps Coates is

saddened by this because it means the Americans that wronged him have yet to own up to their

mistakes. America keeps looking forward, when what she really ought to be doing is mustering

the courage to look back, because if the past is not resolved, the future, and all the ‘hope’

accompanying it cannot truly manifest and racism will never truly become abolished.

America’s version of black history is one huge misdirection act. In addition to trivializing

it, America also highlights all the things that should not be highlighted. “Why were only [black]

heroes non-violent?” (32). Americans valorize pacifists such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa

Parks, praising them in their history textbooks as key contributors that peacefully ‘put an end to

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racism in America’. What they fail to point out is that had they attempted anything even

remotely near violence, they would most likely have been swiftly and brutally gunned down.

George Washington, on the other hand, is often praised for being a competent military general,

leading his fellow white men to victory, guns blazing and flags flying. Had Washington been

black, perhaps he would have been labelled a warmonger, or even a violent criminal, similarly to

Malcolm X, commonly labelled as ‘violent’ and ‘racist’. This is also a product of implicit

racism: men of different colors being stealthily subjected to different moral standards. Had white

people been subjected to “…dogs that rent their children apart… tear gas that clawed at their

lungs… firehoses that tore off their clothes and tumbled them into the streets… men who raped

them… women who cursed them… children who spat on them… terrorists that bombed them”

(32), it would most likely have been considered an injustice, incurring America’s blazing wrath.

Yet when it is done to the blacks, they are made to endure it, being given nothing save for a film

20 years later that highlights their ‘pacifism’. Forced pacifism is not pacifism at all, it is self-

preservation. Praising the blacks for enduring all the injustice they experienced does not

magically restore all the ordeals they suffered through and make everything fine, although it

seems like America thinks that is the case. Americans do all sorts of things to ‘help’, when in

reality they are merely skirting around the real issue, which is the stigma of implicit racism that

they still hold in the backs of their minds.

While less harmful, this by no means equates to an argument that implicit racism is not

dangerous. It still holds dangerous implications, acting as an enabler for the atrocities being

committed by some today. To this day, it is not uncommon for blacks to be casually beaten or

killed by white Americans, and police brutality remains a major concern to the wellbeing of

African American lives. If racism were truly abolished, one might imagine that these ‘accidents’

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would not occur, or that the perpetrator would be appropriately punished. Yet time after time,

these perpetrators are let off the hook with little to no consequences. Implicit racism is the culprit

behind this, instilled in almost all of America. This hidden, innate stigma acts as a demotivator to

those wishing to do something regarding this issue, and when paired with the belief that

everything is fine in America, all of America becomes an idle bystander while the blacks

continue to be mistreated.

“To acknowledge these horrors means turning away from the brightly rendered version

of your country as it has always declared itself and turning toward something murkier and

unknown. It is still too difficult for most Americans to do this” (98-99). This quote very

effectively sums up the entire issue Coates addresses. Unfortunately, it is also the only way for

America to truly move on from the issue of racism. It is ironic in the sense that America, in all its

efforts to abolish racism, is also the only factor preventing itself from doing so, turning a blind

eye to the very things it needs to pay attention to. Perhaps one day, Coates’ dream will be

realized and a black boy hugging a white man will no longer seem so extraordinary, however this

will only be made possible if America gets rid of the stigma of implicit racism.