I came to a similar conclusion somewhere between my psychology class and my epistemology class. Spotlight bias is a phenomenon where somebody wants to make sure they don’t confirm a stereotype and they get nervous, overcorrecting or underperforming or something of the like to accidentally confirm the stereotype. I’ve seen this in a lot of people from multiple races and nationalities. I’ve never been called out for “Asian privilege”, but I’ve had “white” friends lament to me that they will forever be racist.

And that scares me.

They tell me personal stereotypes can never be changed and that the only way to cope is to continue watching your back to make sure you don’t do something racist. This opens the door for spotlight bias.

It’s like trying on purpose to forget something. For whatever reason we keep checking ourselves to see if we’ve forgotten what we want to forget. This act then brings up the memory we wanted to forget, and thanks to how neurons work, makes the memory stronger.

I’m not a neurologist, but I’m afraid the same thing might be happening with stereotypes. My guess is if you’re always making sure that you don’t believe stereotype X about group Y, you constantly remember the statement “stereotype X” and then make it stronger in your mind. It gets to the point where whenever you see someone from group Y you always think stereotype X, whether you personally believe it or not.

This leads to cognitive dissonance, where you have two opposing beliefs that are running through your head and unless the dissonance is resolved you will veer wildly toward one end or the other.

Assuming my crap psychology education is correct, this is how we’re building racists in the 21st century.

That scares me.

The solution is what you said, ignoring racial boundaries entirely. I don’t form group identities, so this is easy for me and I don’t know if it’s at all easy for other people. I have to think deliberately to make a racial connection. But just because I’m “color blind” doesn’t mean I don’t see targeted violence toward people. I don’t hate police officers that target a certain group, I hate police officers that don’t treat people fairly or jump to conclusions. I don’t hate people against such officers, I hate people who think all police officers are going to shoot up their families.

We need to recognize that we are all sons and daughters of God. Everything else follows.

P.S. I’m only 17, so I’m not overly mature and am probably wrong. Please point this out to me.

P.P.S. By “white”, do you mean English, French, German, Irish, Italian, Polish, Scottish, Armenian, Assyrian, Egyptian, Iranian, Iraqi, Lebanese, Palestinian, Syrian, Afghanistani, Israeli, Cajun, Portuguese, Albanian, Croatian, Czech, Russian, Ukrainian, Czechoslovakian, Bosnian, or something else? ;)