They are racist AF. White people are socialized into it before we even know what is going on. It is so pervasive that even if we were raised by well-meaning people, we did not escape it. It takes conscious effort to get out of it.

The sales lady would have had to have said to herself, “OK, I’m having this impulse to take out this dress and look at it, but that’s because I was raised to think black people are dirty, but that’s bullshit. So let me just gag down this impulse because that’s obviously the right thing to do.”

But it is likely that she was barely aware she was even doing it. She was probably thinking about something else the whole time.

Click