There’s a great essay in XO Jane about casual racism and how it contributes to a society that’s just a little bit worse for the non-majority:
Are all people of color universally offended by all this stuff? Of course not. Everyone is different and has different levels of patience and indulgence for this sort of thing. The point is not that these “casual” racisms are offensive to individual people (although yeah, that’s worth considering too) — the point is that they contribute to systematic cultural racism as a whole. By just swallowing this stuff as no big deal, we’re saying these stereotypes are OK. And they’re not.
They don’t have the same shock value as walking up to a person of color and calling them a racial slur. It’s not like being stung; it’s like being slowly burned, by a heat so gradual you barely notice it’s happening.
That trope of “omg political correctness ruining everything”? That essay also explains what I think of that trope:
If you point out casual racism on a regular basis, you’re going to get a lot of people whining that you’re too “politically correct,” which is not a phrase that actually means anything anymore, besides saying of its speaker, “I am nostalgic for a time when I could be as racist as I wanted and nobody bugged me about it.”
That time is in the past. Get over it.
