I grew up thinking that there was no way I could ever act in a racist way. After all, I had cousins who were mixed-race, and they were never treated any differently as far as I could tell growing up. My parents taught me to love my neighbor as myself and to always do unto others as I would want done unto me, a message reinforced in Catholic school. While these are both great guides from our Catholic faith, the way in which they are taught often focuses on the individual and can lead us to think that “so long as I’m not acting in a racist way, I’m not part of the problem.”
However, thinking in such an individual way doesn’t much encourage us to actively be part of the solution. In
Open Wide Our Hearts (2018), the US Conference of Catholic Bishops calls for us to have “a genuine conversion of heart, a conversion that will compel change, and the reform of our institutions and society” (7). Part of this genuine conversion involves seeing the ways in which our society is structured for the advantage of those who are perceived to be white. In order to love our neighbors as ourselves, we must move beyond our individual lives and actively work to ensure that dignity, liberty, and justice are truly available to all members of our human family.