We say we aren’t racist.

We white students at Saint Louis University are appalled when we hear that one of our own has committed a hate crime—that one of us has harassed a black student and threatened to lynch her.

It was heinous, we say. With our other white friends, we gape at the terribleness of it all, are shocked that things like this are still going on in 2010, one year into the presidency of the first black president, one week before Black History Month, in a city that boasts handling the Dred Scott Decision and that sits in one of the most liberal counties in Missouri. We wonder how it could have happened.

Above all, we maintain that we aren’t racist like those students. Not at all.

We white kids have no idea. We are shocked because we are ignorant; in fact, according to members of the Black Student Alliance, racial slurs occur regularly at SLU: Black RAs have had the “n” word written on their dry-erase boards outside their dorms. We live in one of the most segregated cities in the Midwest, one with predominately black neighborhoods in the north and predominately white neighborhoods in the south.

We white kids have the privilege to not have to think about these things. As white people, we don’t routinely encounter incidences of racial oppression. We have the privilege to turn away from it, shelter ourselves in our University where only 657 of the 7,814 students are black, according to SLU’s factbook. We might have a black classmate or professor, but other than that we reside in a white world.

Most importantly, because we never think about racism, we never think about the ways we participate in it. We call the gas station in front of Reinert “Shady Shell” but never ask ourselves why it is so shady, why all the neighborhoods in Midtown are impoverished and mostly black. We never ask why most of our custodians and food workers are black; we just let them serve us, swipe our cards, give us our receipts. We might say thank you. Probably we won’t.

We are ignorant. We don’t realize the opportunities our skin color affords us. At stores we rarely have to deal with employees regarding us with suspicion. We apply for apartments without having to consider whether or not we will be denied because the neighborhood is mostly white. If we got pulled over for speeding, we might be polite, but we would probably just be indifferent. We wouldn’t have to worry about wearing a bright mask of politeness because any false move could push the cop to search our vehicle. We might not even get the ticket.

We are ignorant of our own privilege. We think that how we experience the world is the way others do, too. We don’t see how much racism still exists, and how we, just by accepting our privilege, collaborate with it.

The recent hate crime by a SLU student should open everyone’s eyes. Of course it should. But it shouldn’t stop there. We must do more than just realize racism exists: We must discover the myriad ways that racism, serpentine racism, weaves its way into our lives and gives us undeserved advantage.

We say we aren’t racist. However, if anything is going to change, we have to acknowledge that maybe, in fact, we are a little. And instead of feeling guilty and giving up, we need to face up to that reality and find a way to work against it.

Roberta Singer is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences.