Racism stems from a broader context of social transactions that are often termed “prejudice.” What I find interesting is that while that word immediately stimulates negative feelings in the ears of most people, we are all prejudiced! It is impossible for us to operate in the world without being prejudiced. Prejudice is the mechanism that enables us to discriminate among an unmanageable number of variables to make choices. Most of us have limited resources and must make quick choices. Prejudice is, in fact, a very useful tool in assisting us in the process of discriminating among a large number of variables.

“Prejudice” really simply means “prejudgment”. It means that we have used certain characteristics to help us efficiently sort among variables of an unknown and assist in our decision making. We use prejudice in all kinds of shopping decisions to help sort among variables. In today’s world, those of us who spend time on the Internet are quite familiar with the sorting devices that the social networking platforms give us to discriminate among our viewers and contacts. We need to be clear, then, in our understanding that to be “prejudiced” is not a bad thing. In fact it is a vital protective and selective device.

So where does it turn from being a useful social device to becoming a destructive and hateful device? Terms such as “all Black people are lazy” are phrases that characterize inappropriate, hateful and non-factual uses of the concept of “prejudice.”

Both within and without the GLBT community this has been a troublesome social phenomenon. It is troublesome because, while members of the GLBT community have been victims of prejudice and discrimination, they have also been perpetrators. One would expect that their victim status would make them extremely intolerant of prejudice and discrimination, and yet they go on inflicting the social disease on others (of course, without intending to do so).

Anyone who understands social dynamics is really not surprised, because people who have been wounded typically will wound other people. Nevertheless, the cycle of woundedness must be broken. The first step in breaking the cycle is creating awareness. We must become aware of how our behavior is hurting each other – on a very practical, day-to-day level. Whether we are part of an oppressor group or an oppressed group, we participate in prejudice in destructive ways that range from unconscious to intentional.

Many people have no awareness of the repeating patterns of their relationships. They never see the macro view. No healing can occur, because they are limited to the micro view. The solution may be as simple as finding a process observer. A process observer is a person outside the relationship (such as a close friend) who can observe behaviors and events over time. That person can provide objective feedback to the participant(s). There is a scripture in the Bible that says, “Physician heal thyself.” What that means is that the best doctor in the world cannot heal himself – it takes intervention from another doctor. We all need a process observer.

Racism is very insidious. Most people would not want to be racists. Like the serpent in the Garden of Eden, it creeps up on people in insidious ways. A process observer can show each of us how racism is evident in our relationships. Individually, each of us should have a goal to discover who we are at core level. Once that is achieved, we will not need to diminish another in order to elevate ourselves.

Only we can decide what discriminators are useful for our decision making and which represent hateful bias in our lives. The Henry Louis Gates issue was useful in calling our national consciousness to one aspect of this broad and deep issue. His high profile status brings a face that could not be brought by thousands of other nameless, non-cached individuals.

Down here on the ground we can see all the differences that divide us — race, gender, age, religion, social class – but from a view atop the mountain, we are less able to see those differences. At the leadership level, we must be blind to race and other divisive characteristics. We need to listen to reasonable voices from good people without regard to their gender, race, social class, or other demographics. The voice of wisdom may come in unlikely packaging. Scripture says, “Be careful how you entertain strangers, for some have entertained angels unaware.”