Intent

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I am almost certainly racist.

I don’t intend to be racist, but like I said, intentions aren’t really what matter. Outcomes are.

Note, for example, the cliché of the gormless close-minded goon who begins a sentence with “I’m not racist, but…” before going on to say something clearly racist. It’s as though the racism could be defanged by disavowing bad intent.

Yes indeed.

To claim you’re free of prejudice almost certainly means that you’re not looking hard enough. The aim of the exercise is, as always, to keep improving yourself: find where you have (or are) a problem, get better, repeat. We’re not one of us perfect, but we can all strive to be better tomorrow than we are today.