When discussing race in the United States, we as Americans have misdirected and diverted these crucial conversations by expressing its discomfort, or by shifting the conversation into a linear faceted system. We use these shields of being uncomfortable when approaching systemic racism, and in doing so we have allowed for everyday applications of casual racism across any and all aspects of everyday life. As systemic racism has festered and spread within the United States, we have gradually become accustomed to inherent forms of microaggressions and acts of “accepted” racism. These instances often go unrecognized and have become systemically ingrained in our societies, fueling our inherent biases and racial discrimination. We often see overt actions of racial discrimination and hatred (especially in the media) yet eliminating these cruel and violent acts of racism is not the key to solving it. We live in a society that has systematically dismissed the acceptance and bridge of cross-racial communication, which can be described as recognizing, affirming, and valuing varying cultural perspectives and communications avoiding assimilation to common “culturally expected” communication practices. We have gradually fueled the idea that cross-racial communication does not belong in the United States, an idea that seems like a generally simple act to achieve. We will start by asking the question: why have we let this go on so long?

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Readers may be wondering, “if we stop overt, violent acts of racism, how does that not help solve the problem of racism in the U.S?” We need to be establishing what has fueled these acts over time, and we need to recognize that no one is born a racist. One of the greatest amplifications to racial division and the unwillingness to accept cross-racial communication is the notion of fundamentalist rhetoric. To give a brief, baseline understanding, fundamentalism is to have strict adherence to one’s basic principles.

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The way in which we can combat racism is by better understanding where it exists on a fundamental (different than fundamentalist) and accepted level, and then by understanding ways in which we can identify and gradually eliminate them. The goal of this lesson and overview is to establish ways in which we as individuals can combat systemic racism, understand the dangers and amplifications of fundamentalism/fundamentalist rhetoric, and better understand the conflicting sides between those who accept and welcome cross-racial communication, and those who do not. As we dive into this lesson, we want to establish several key concepts, as well as several questions for the reader. Ideally, your answers to these questions will change as the lesson goes on, and you will revisit them later on. "Key Concepts" can be found in the self-titled tab above.