I am racist.

I mean, I’d be lying to say anything else. I’m a white, straight, cisgendered, middle-aged, middle-class American man. I was raised in the 80s. I grew up in a majority white neighborhood in a majority white college town. Even with parents and school teaching that racism was wrong, how could I not harbor racist thoughts?

Today, whenever I have a racist thought, I yell at myself inside my head and fight my racist training. Because that’s what it is: training. Through media and news, through history books and racist relatives, I have racist thoughts.

I didn’t used to. As a little kid I didn’t. Black kids in my class were friends, full stop. But the training starts early, and I’m sure that by high school my racism was in place. And while the anti-racist training my parents instilled was equally well in place, one moment crystallized how insidious the training is.

I have a disabled little brother — cerebral palsy and autism. He’s ten years younger than me, one of the happiest and friendliest kids I’ve ever known. He watches a lot of TV, mostly cartoons. One day when he was around maybe eight, we were walking on the sidewalk and passed two young, black male college students who were going the other direction. My brother looked at me and said in the strained speech that people who don’t know him have trouble understanding: “Those are bad guys.”

Shocked, I corrected him. “No, they’re students.” I wanted to berate him, but all he would have taken away was my anger, because he’s is incapable of discussing broad concepts. He…