Stop Pretending Racism is Over

[Ms. Toad]

Stop Pretending Racism is Over.

What I want is for us to stop pretending. I want us to stop pretending that racism is over. If it were, tipsy strangers wouldn’t have heckled me. I want us to stop pretending that it’s not harder to be female than male, that it’s not harder to be gay than straight. I want us to stop pretending that we live in an equal society. We don’t. It isn’t one person or one group’s fault. Instead of blaming or evading, we can encourage and confront, together. Instead of pretending that all these “isms” are over, we can say “Things are better than they’ve ever been, and there’s so much more to be done.”