One of the greatest threats to the “equality of all humans” is passive racism. It is unfortunate to learn that many passive racists in high positions in government could be responsible for institutionalizing racism through clandestine policies that are not easily discernible by the unwary public. While efforts geared toward confronting overt racism is worthy of praise, passive racists seem to pose greater danger to the society because such racist policies could affect unborn generation. Many civil right activists rightly focus on overt racism and injustices because it is glaringly disturbing. However, another arm of civil right activism would be required to focus on the activities of passive racism that manifests itself in various policies and guidelines, and the attendant subtle/or intriguing racist languages associated with some of the policies and guidelines.
Passive racism succeeds more often than not because it is carried out when no one is paying attention and by people who appear outwardly as fair-minded. These perceived fair-minded racist also speak with both sides of the mouth. One side of the mouth speaks out in public to condemn any forms of racism and the other side of the mouth speaks softly in private to fellow passive racists to enact racist policies. It is difficult to detect passive racists without an arm of the civil right organization that is tasked to monitor policies and then fish out the racist components of the policies and the individuals responsible for enacting the policies. Even after detecting racist policies, it could be difficult to ascribe racist title to the individuals that enacted the policies because they always have a plan that would exonerate them if caught.
Even though the manifestation of racist acts such as overt segregation, public discrimination/ humiliation, and senseless killing have slowed down due to pressure from civil right activism, passage of time, as well as visual effects of current and emerging technology, passive racism enshrined in policies are not slowing down. Regrettably, there are millions of policies that needs to be examined for racist content. The new proposed arm of civil right activism has their task cut out for them. Starting today is not late as more policies are churned out every day. The new civil right activism should be broad based and must cut across all races to be successful. Leaving this new arm of civil right activism to the minorities who are victims of the racist policies will not be successful.