Heads or Tails

You can’t tell if a coin is biased with one spin. A coin biased to Heads can still fall on Tails. That is pretty compelling evidence that the coin is not anti-Tails. Even though it is. Spin a biased coin 7.8 Billion times and you will be able to tell very clearly that it is biased. 60 million times. Still clear. As the group gets bigger the compelling evidence in the defence of the coin will get weaker. The same is true of racism. An individual can try being “colour blind” and letting people “put the past behind them”, in order to treat people equally *from this point forward* “based on merit”. The first problem is treating people equally, who haven’t been treated equally, isn’t treating people equally. The second problem is we only see the strengths we are looking for. The words we don’t understand are just noise. The experiences we haven’t had don’t stretch us if they don’t connect, in some way, to the experience we have had. “I don’t see colour” is a form of racism. Racism with a compelling defence. Spin the coin a few more times and perhaps you’ll see the problem.

Which is Heads, and which is Tails?