August 21, 2025 • 8 mins
In this episode, I dive into the hard truth: racism didn’t disappear just because society decided to stop acknowledging it. Too often, we hear “that doesn’t happen anymore” or “we’ve moved past that,” while real people still face systemic barriers, microaggressions, and cultural denial. This conversation unpacks how racism continues to exist in hidden, unspoken ways—and why it’s critical that we refuse to let silence erase the truth.
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Hashtags: #MakingSenseOfRacism #PodcastConversation #HiddenRacism #SocialJusticeTalks #BlackGenX #TruthTelling #EquityAndAccess
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Call to Action (CTA): 👉 If this episode resonates with you, follow the podcast, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs to hear this conversation. Your support helps keep these important discussions alive.
Hashtags: #MakingSenseOfRacism #PodcastConversation #HiddenRacism #SocialJusticeTalks #BlackGenX #TruthTelling #EquityAndAccess
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/in-the-know-with-tony-reeves--5596987/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
And in the good evening everyone and read Tony read.
When you read Tony read bier following the news and
right shape or no shortage of things to talk about.
What didn't read? This is a reality simply happened definite
(00:20):
and read we read, but go ahead and kids started.
The difficult thing about racism today, it's not so much
about what you can see, it's about what you can prove.
A lot of times when we talk about racism, we
overlooked the fact that we made this hard shift from
(00:42):
a period of explicit racism during the Jim Crow era
to this period of time where even though the laws changed,
the people in some of their attitudes didn't change. So
therefore going from a period of time where racism was
more blatant and more expressive to a period of where
you have to now kind of figure out if this
was racism or not happen literally overnight. Let's take a
moment to see if we can make some sense of
(01:04):
how racism operates in the world where people sometimes present
as if it doesn't exist. Oftentimes, when we think about
racism from the historical standpoint, we typically defer back to
the period of what we call Jim Crow the reason
why that period is so profound with not only was
the culture and the attitudes about racism so explicit and
expressed towards people of color, we also overlook the fact
(01:26):
that a lot of the laws expressly encapsulated these as well,
whether it be restrictive covenants which basically restricted homeowners from
selling their homes to people of color, or redlining where
you are effectively courting off specific areas and populations as
being undesirable for purposes of home ownership and home building,
to even the Jim Crow laws themselves, which basically prohibit
(01:49):
individuals from going into certain spaces and isolated schools and
workplaces in a discriminatory manner. During this time period, people
not only understood where the lines of demarcations were, in
other words, what was and what was not acceptable, but
this was also encapsulating racism within the institutions. Therefore, not
(02:10):
only was the culture at the time that of express
racism towards people of color, it was integrated and immersed
within the institutional institutions as well. Therefore, there was no
confusion about what was and what was not considered racists
or discriminatory at the time. The nineteen seventies ushered in
a brand new shift in terms of the actual line
(02:31):
in the sand from the laws that were on the books.
We now have the Civil Rights Act, the Voters Rights Act,
and the Fair Housing Act, as well as Brown versus
Board of Education. So you've now got this period of
time where you've had all of this tumultuous periods where
we've literally worked hard to change the laws. The problem
is is that even though the change the laws may
(02:52):
have changed, the attitudes of the time didn't. Unfortunately, what
happened was even though the laws were create in such
a way to create greater opportunities and to address all
the institutional racism and discrimination and bigotry that was going
on in time, it was not the same effort to
change the hearts and minds and the people. So now
what happened is that you've now gone into this new
(03:14):
world where even though the institutions have adapted to eliminate, reduce,
or cut down on those laws that had discriminatory or
bigotry intent, you still had those same people who previously
had those feelings now moving into this new period of
time where they're having to learn how to maneuver where
they're discriminatory and bigotry, and the intent that they had before,
(03:37):
which was expressly permitted and a prior type period, is
now no longer permitted. But one of the problems that
came from this is that we now started presenting with
this new narrative where people are effectively saying, now that
we've addressed the problem, you don't have anything to worry about.
But the problem is is that the people who are
on the receiving again did have something to worry about.
(03:58):
So then what happened is that we started moving into
the situation of what I would call situational racism. This
is where individuals now didn't have to they were now
no longer facing the institutional type of racism that they
were experiencing, but they now had these various situations that
presented themselves where they were constantly trying to navigate whether
what they were dealing with was actually racism in itself
(04:19):
or was it something else, Whether it be situations like
being pulled over because you fit the profile of someone,
whether it because you were not getting the same measure
of treatment in various establishments that some of your lighter
scan colleagues received, whether you walked into a space and
found that people who are not as engaging. So now
what was happening is that people of color, black people specifically,
(04:42):
were now moving into this space where they now had
to figure out on their own whether the situation they
were dealing with was reflective of a discriminatory or bigoted
intent or whether it was something else. The other problem
that we often found that was presenting itself under this
new world order is that you found people who were
going out of their way, bending over backwards to try
(05:03):
to rationalize why this unequal treatment was being justified. In
other words, when you, as a person of color, a
black person is literally saying yourself based on what you're seeing,
you're experiencing, and what you're communicating with your friends, and
this is racism. And you have people who are not
who don't look like you, who are literally trying to
convince you that this is something other than that. And
(05:24):
what you're doing now is you're putting the onus upon
people of color to have now bear the burden of
having to distinguish between what is and what's not. And
it becomes even more troubling when individuals who have maybe
never experienced this are effectively trying to tell you that
what you are experiencing, you're not experiencing. So as such,
even though we are roughly fifty plus years removed from
(05:47):
nineteen seventy, which fifty five years are more removed, you
now have this situation where you still have to remind
people that at the time when the laws changed, and
we applaud the laws that were put into place that
were designed to a tool to allow black people and
people of color to be able to protect themselves, protect
their voting rights, protect their housing rights, protect their civil rights,
we have to also remember that there were people in
(06:10):
those same time periods who still live here today who
were adamantly against those things and dedicating themselves for the
next fifty plus years to take whatever action that was
available to them to be able to either undermine, undo,
or provide for a new world order that would allow
them to go back to the way things previously were.
So the question I asked for you is this, what
(06:32):
do you do when the law says this, but people
act a completely different way, whether we want to acknowledge
it or not. We've made a lot of great strides
as a country, and we know that there's a lot
more that we need to do to go forward. But
it's important to remember that there are still people here
who literally are adamantly and passionately against the changes that
(06:54):
have been made that have been designed to redress and
address all of the problematic areas that were presented to
us over this period of time. In other words, we've
got to keep in mind that what we're going forward,
that as we are going through these growing pains, there
are still an adamant section of this society who have
(07:14):
aggressively worked and aggressively thought towards trying to re establish
the world order that was present before the Civil Rights Act,
voter right tack at Fair Housing Act, and even more so,
it's important for you to understand that when you're dealing
with black people or other people of color who are
engaging these people or engage these scenarios, to not be
so quick to tell them that what they're seeing is
(07:35):
not what they're actually seeing, because at the end of
the day, it may actually be racism, it may actually
be bigotry, it may actually be discrimination. So instead of
telling the person that what they're saying they're not seeing,
or what they're experiencing they're not experiencing, let's focus on
what we can do to make sure we address that
concern and go forward to change hearts and minds those
(07:56):
people who want to push us back and keep us
from going forward in the way that we've been trying
to do so far.
And in the good evening everyone and read Tony read.
When you read Tony read bier following the news and
right shape or no shortage of things to talk about.
What didn't read? This is a reality simply happened definite
(00:20):
and read we read, but go ahead and kids started.
The difficult thing about racism today, it's not so much
about what you can see, it's about what you can prove.
A lot of times when we talk about racism, we
overlooked the fact that we made this hard shift from
(00:42):
a period of explicit racism during the Jim Crow era
to this period of time where even though the laws changed,
the people in some of their attitudes didn't change. So
therefore going from a period of time where racism was
more blatant and more expressive to a period of where
you have to now kind of figure out if this
was racism or not happen literally overnight. Let's take a
moment to see if we can make some sense of
(01:04):
how racism operates in the world where people sometimes present
as if it doesn't exist. Oftentimes, when we think about
racism from the historical standpoint, we typically defer back to
the period of what we call Jim Crow the reason
why that period is so profound with not only was
the culture and the attitudes about racism so explicit and
expressed towards people of color, we also overlook the fact
(01:26):
that a lot of the laws expressly encapsulated these as well,
whether it be restrictive covenants which basically restricted homeowners from
selling their homes to people of color, or redlining where
you are effectively courting off specific areas and populations as
being undesirable for purposes of home ownership and home building,
to even the Jim Crow laws themselves, which basically prohibit
(01:49):
individuals from going into certain spaces and isolated schools and
workplaces in a discriminatory manner. During this time period, people
not only understood where the lines of demarcations were, in
other words, what was and what was not acceptable, but
this was also encapsulating racism within the institutions. Therefore, not
(02:10):
only was the culture at the time that of express
racism towards people of color, it was integrated and immersed
within the institutional institutions as well. Therefore, there was no
confusion about what was and what was not considered racists
or discriminatory at the time. The nineteen seventies ushered in
a brand new shift in terms of the actual line
(02:31):
in the sand from the laws that were on the books.
We now have the Civil Rights Act, the Voters Rights Act,
and the Fair Housing Act, as well as Brown versus
Board of Education. So you've now got this period of
time where you've had all of this tumultuous periods where
we've literally worked hard to change the laws. The problem
is is that even though the change the laws may
(02:52):
have changed, the attitudes of the time didn't. Unfortunately, what
happened was even though the laws were create in such
a way to create greater opportunities and to address all
the institutional racism and discrimination and bigotry that was going
on in time, it was not the same effort to
change the hearts and minds and the people. So now
what happened is that you've now gone into this new
(03:14):
world where even though the institutions have adapted to eliminate, reduce,
or cut down on those laws that had discriminatory or
bigotry intent, you still had those same people who previously
had those feelings now moving into this new period of
time where they're having to learn how to maneuver where
they're discriminatory and bigotry, and the intent that they had before,
(03:37):
which was expressly permitted and a prior type period, is
now no longer permitted. But one of the problems that
came from this is that we now started presenting with
this new narrative where people are effectively saying, now that
we've addressed the problem, you don't have anything to worry about.
But the problem is is that the people who are
on the receiving again did have something to worry about.
(03:58):
So then what happened is that we started moving into
the situation of what I would call situational racism. This
is where individuals now didn't have to they were now
no longer facing the institutional type of racism that they
were experiencing, but they now had these various situations that
presented themselves where they were constantly trying to navigate whether
what they were dealing with was actually racism in itself
(04:19):
or was it something else, Whether it be situations like
being pulled over because you fit the profile of someone,
whether it because you were not getting the same measure
of treatment in various establishments that some of your lighter
scan colleagues received, whether you walked into a space and
found that people who are not as engaging. So now
what was happening is that people of color, black people specifically,
(04:42):
were now moving into this space where they now had
to figure out on their own whether the situation they
were dealing with was reflective of a discriminatory or bigoted
intent or whether it was something else. The other problem
that we often found that was presenting itself under this
new world order is that you found people who were
going out of their way, bending over backwards to try
(05:03):
to rationalize why this unequal treatment was being justified. In
other words, when you, as a person of color, a
black person is literally saying yourself based on what you're seeing,
you're experiencing, and what you're communicating with your friends, and
this is racism. And you have people who are not
who don't look like you, who are literally trying to
convince you that this is something other than that. And
(05:24):
what you're doing now is you're putting the onus upon
people of color to have now bear the burden of
having to distinguish between what is and what's not. And
it becomes even more troubling when individuals who have maybe
never experienced this are effectively trying to tell you that
what you are experiencing, you're not experiencing. So as such,
even though we are roughly fifty plus years removed from
(05:47):
nineteen seventy, which fifty five years are more removed, you
now have this situation where you still have to remind
people that at the time when the laws changed, and
we applaud the laws that were put into place that
were designed to a tool to allow black people and
people of color to be able to protect themselves, protect
their voting rights, protect their housing rights, protect their civil rights,
we have to also remember that there were people in
(06:10):
those same time periods who still live here today who
were adamantly against those things and dedicating themselves for the
next fifty plus years to take whatever action that was
available to them to be able to either undermine, undo,
or provide for a new world order that would allow
them to go back to the way things previously were.
So the question I asked for you is this, what
(06:32):
do you do when the law says this, but people
act a completely different way, whether we want to acknowledge
it or not. We've made a lot of great strides
as a country, and we know that there's a lot
more that we need to do to go forward. But
it's important to remember that there are still people here
who literally are adamantly and passionately against the changes that
(06:54):
have been made that have been designed to redress and
address all of the problematic areas that were presented to
us over this period of time. In other words, we've
got to keep in mind that what we're going forward,
that as we are going through these growing pains, there
are still an adamant section of this society who have
(07:14):
aggressively worked and aggressively thought towards trying to re establish
the world order that was present before the Civil Rights Act,
voter right tack at Fair Housing Act, and even more so,
it's important for you to understand that when you're dealing
with black people or other people of color who are
engaging these people or engage these scenarios, to not be
so quick to tell them that what they're seeing is
(07:35):
not what they're actually seeing, because at the end of
the day, it may actually be racism, it may actually
be bigotry, it may actually be discrimination. So instead of
telling the person that what they're saying they're not seeing,
or what they're experiencing they're not experiencing, let's focus on
what we can do to make sure we address that
concern and go forward to change hearts and minds those
(07:56):
people who want to push us back and keep us
from going forward in the way that we've been trying
to do so far.
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