I've got a challenge for you. Try talking about racism with your friends, family or coworkers and get ready to watch people. So let's push through but discomfort, don't worry, you can do it. We're going to talk about racism. Well, the dictionary defines racism as the hatred or intolerance of another race or races. Well, yes, but racism is a little more complicated than that.

The dictionary offers a very simple explanation because it's just the dictionary. If you want to understand racism, you need to talk sociology. And sociology explains racism as a combination of prejudice and power. Well, isn't that just convenient? Let's just ignore what the dictionary says. No, we're not ignoring the dictionary just going a little deeper.

Think of it this way. If your car breaks down, you don't look a car in the dictionary to try and fix it. You go to him again soon. When it comes to get into the nitty gritty of understanding how racism works, I say we should probably defer to sociologists because you know, they study how people, organizations and institutions work. It's kind of their job. So here are five things everyone should understand about racism.

Talking about racism. It's like no matter what I do, or what I say, someone's gonna call me a racist. Good people can unintentionally say and do racist things. Racism isn't just burning crosses and racial slurs. It's not always a conscious hatred or dislike people automatically associate saying something racist with being a bad person. And while we can agree that being racist is bad, good people can say racist things, or just wind up supporting racist institutions and practices without even realizing it.

Oh, so now it's my fault. If I accidentally do something, we're not playing the blame game here. But accidents can still be hurtful. It's important. Remember that intent isn't the issue. It's the impact Like if I accidentally step on your toe, it's an accident, but it still hurts.

I can't just pretend that it didn't step on your foot, I have to acknowledge it. Say that I'm sorry and be more careful with my big ass feet. If you want to get technical, there's really no such thing as race we are all the human race is a social construct raises a social construct. But that doesn't mean racism isn't real. a social construct is a category perception or idea created and developed by society. And then it's applied to individuals or groups.

So yes, we're all part of the human race. But the human race did this funny thing where they categorized everyone based on skin tone and region, even though social constructs are made up. They're still real. I mean, money is a social construct. Fundamentally, it's just a piece of paper, but it still keeps people up at night and as a huge effect on our day to day lives. Marriage fashioned good and evil.

They're all social constructs, but they're still real things. The same is true for race. Why black, pink, purple, Little polka dots. I don't know why we need all of these labels. Let's just not see race. Just see everyone the same.

Colorblindness is not going to fix racism. It's a good idea in theory, but ignoring race is not going to solve racism. Race isn't the problem treating people differently based on racist the problem. It's okay to see my race. I mean, it's kind of hard to ignore how someone looks. There's nothing wrong with seeing our differences, or differences.

Make us kind of cool. Okay, but when are we going to talk about reverse racism? reverse racism is not a thing. I've been bullied, beaten up and called all sorts of names in my lifetime, and you're gonna tell me that's not racism? Whoa, that sounds awful. I'm sorry, none of that stuff is okay.

But those are examples of racial prejudice, not racism. That's because racism isn't just about individuals. It's about institutional power. racial prejudice is not cool, but when a person of color discriminates or stereotypes of white person because of their race in the United States, they don't have the institutional power to back them up and say that those feelings are okay. institutions are things like school, government, the military corporations and our justice system. All of these things shape how people of color are treated as a group and as individuals.

That's because racism is not just on a person to person basis. It's big picture things like people would traditionally Latino or black sounding names, having a harder time getting job interviews, even when they have the same qualifications as white people applying for the same job or people of color face and harsher prison sentences for petty crimes in comparison to white criminals. It's also harder for people of color to get home loans on top of housing discrimination that often keeps them out of predominantly white neighborhoods. This is how individual feelings about people of color are supported by institutional power. Prejudice of any kind isn't okay. But it's important to understand that prejudice and racism aren't the same thing.

Thought about it like that? Well, you are not the only one Racism is complicated and overwhelming to think about even for me, but understanding what racism is and what isn't, is the first step in fighting against it. So what are the misconceptions that you heard about racism? Or maybe some misconceptions that you had in the past? Let us know in the comments, and we'll see you next week. In our last vlog.

I went to VidCon and asked fans about racism and stereotypes on YouTube. Here's some of your comments. Yeah, Madrigal, Kappas, there's nothing worse than being afraid of the police when you haven't done anything wrong. When I was in LA, I had to drive in the entire time. I was looking over my shoulder like, I hope I'm not doing anything wrong. Louis Hayward.

I loved Suzy Disney stories are hilarious. You camera 13. You've got really good tape. This is an awesome list of my favorite YouTubers on here. So you guys should definitely check them out. And in our last sketch, we wondered what some of our favorite movies would look like if they were starring black actors.

Here's what you had to say. You know, Louis 2011. I really want to be James Bond too, but I heard he doesn't want to do it. Linda Mitchell. You are raved you want to go back to 1935? Because there's no way I'm going back there.