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Hello. My name is Lezlie. And I am racist.

Am I out burning crosses and refusing to sit in restaurants beside Asian people for fear of coronavirus? No.

But I am white and I live in a society that privileges whiteness.

In Halifax, data show that African Nova Scotians are six times more likely to be street-checked by police than white people. Across the country, Indigenous adults make up five per cent of the population, and almost 30 per cent of those incarcerated on federal sentences. Provincially, there are too few black and Indigenous lawyers and teachers and politicians. You go to the drugstore down the street to buy Band-Aids. You can choose Paw Patrol. You can choose Spongebob. Or you can have the pinky-beige that matches me. That's what counts as flesh-coloured. As neutral. And if you think clear bandages are doing the trick, you're missing the point entirely.

These situations — the big and the small — are not random, they are systemic.

And whether I like it or not, as a white person, I benefit from that structure.

Band-Aids match my skin. I don't worry about being racially profiled when I'm shopping. My kids don't come home and tell me the stories that my black friends' kids tell them.

The way I figure, racists don't sit around worrying about how racist they are.

Most of them haven't a sweet clue that their everyday actions or words are causing harm.

That's why I embrace the healthy fear that I am racist. Sure, I would recognize if I were out in the world crossing the street to avoid black kids. But I bet I wouldn't know subtle racism if it came up and bit me. Even if I was participating in it.

Some of you have already turned the page or closed the app, because you don't want to hear this. Some of you, white people, probably legitimately believe you are the least racist person there is anywhere in the world, as a famous man known for famously racist actions recently claimed about himself, and, by extension, his presidency.

And maybe that's true. Maybe you, reading this, are, in fact, the least racist person there is anywhere in the world.

I'm just not that confident. Because my intent, I know. My everyday actions? They're like breathing — 99 per cent of the time, I'm not giving them a thought.

See, no one explicitly taught me to be racist. It's always been a matter of undercurrent. Of "I'm not a racist, but…" comments by friends, of black journalists missing from newsrooms, of Mi'kmaq authors left unassigned in high school, of whiteness being the visual go-to for neutrality. I've never been represented by a black politician, never had a brown doll. I was oblivious to the fact that one of my first boyfriend's was Mi'kmaw because … why? Because his identity was invisible to me.

No number of Indigenous friends or black co-workers or family members can change any of that.

I have swum in a sea of racism since birth; I have profited from racism in ways I'll never know. So how in the world could I presume to be immune? It's safest to start with the assumption that I am not.

Not acting racist in a systemically racist society is about more than wishful thinking, more than intent. It's about work.

Neutrality — "I don't see race," "I treat everyone the same" — sounds nice. But in a world we know privileges whiteness, neutrality is just a screen for sitting back and letting the same things happen, over and over again.

I bet I wouldn't know subtle racism if it came up and bit me.