I have discussed several reasons why whites are so defensive about the suggestion that we benefit from, and are complicit in, a racist system: • Social taboos against talking openly about race • The racist = bad / not racist = good binary • Fear and resentment toward people of color • Our delusion that we are objective individuals • Our guilty knowledge that there is more going on than we can or will admit to • Deep investment in a system that benefits us and that we have been conditioned to see as fair • Internalized superiority and sense of a right to rule • A deep cultural legacy of
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