The Ghost of Ignorance
by: Jennifer Juarez

        I was at the Oakes Café hanging out with a couple of friends just talking about the winter break which had passed. A woman in a mechanical wheelchair came in, looked around, and went back outside. I thought to myself, “she must be waiting for someone”, and then I did not give her a second thought. Afterwards, she came back inside and I felt the cold crisp air from outside. She came up to me and asked if I could zip-up her sweater. I do not use wheelchairs, but I imagined myself in her shoes and it suddenly struck me, “Did she have easy access to where she was headed?” I do not know the truth, but this experience has made me more conscience about the problems of ableism.

        Imagine the many things that we don't know which we still don't know about the people who are affected through racism, homophobia, ageism, and many more prejudices. Everyone in our society is constantly affected by these prejudices, but they don't know that innocence can also affect us. Innocence comes with being a young human being, but as we grow up, we begin to learn about various things like racism, war, famine, and they way that the government works. Innocence becomes criminal innocence when we do not see what is really around us and ignore the fact that it is there. Criminal innocence is perpetuated by the innocence of an individuals' unknown knowledge, because many people are not concerned about things that do not deal with themselves.

        It is very important for people of all races to develop knowledge about other races, for that is the only way that people will overcome the criminal innocence of racism which has been created in our society. Shannon Sullivan writes in The Unconscious Habits of Racial Privilege about the lack of involvement that is missing in our communities between people of color and the dominant race. Criminal innocence is “the result of lack of activity and the absence of efforts to seek out information about non-white people and worlds” (Sullivan 18). Some people live in conservative areas where they don't worry about racism because everyone thinks in a similar manner, but that does not mean a person should ignore racism completely. People need to learn about racism in order to make a difference in their communities by pushing racism awareness further.

        People do not want to find out about oppression because they do not want to get involved in situations that can cause them to look into the real problems in our society. Some of the roots of these problems have started from within the government. In the Fire Next Time , by James Baldwin, written for the white people around him, he describes that the African American community must take the high road and shows the white society how their ignorance and innocence has become criminal. Baldwin believes that innocence is criminal because it is the responsibility of the person to learn about their surroundings. Baldwin states:

You must accept them and accept them with love. For these innocent people have no other hope […] but, as you will discover, people find it very difficult to act on what they know. To act is to be committed, and to be committed is to be in danger. (Baldwin 8-9)

        To act on things that people feel strongly about can be potentially dangerous because some people don't agree with everyone's opinions: yours or mine. Racism, for example, is a very common topic that many people have heard about, and even though it is still happening today, there are not very many solutions to help reduce it. In order to make a difference, people have to step out of their comfort zones, and that is what makes it dangerous; the dangers that are faced because criminal innocence is being surpassed.

        There are so many people out there who believe that their communities are perfect. I lived in a community where the majority of the population was white. Many people believe it was a great city. There were some problems, but the real problem was criminal innocence. For example, a black man was killed in our community by a group of white teenagers and no one spoke up about it. That is a crime that can lead to prison, but the real crime is that no one ever spoke up about what had happened. Criminal innocence was depicted here through the people that do not know how to react to this situation. People in silence do not help the community learn about racism and how it can affect all of us. Sullivan describes that white people uphold white privilege by repressing it, so white people typically resist recognizing that they are contributing to, and benefiting from, white domination. In this case, the teenagers felt it was ok to commit the crime. Sullivan explains:

But as an instance of white solipsism, it also severely limits their ability to treat others in respectful ways. Instead of acknowledging others' particular interests, needs, and projects, white people who are ontologically expansive tend to recognize only their own, and their expansiveness is at the same time a limitation. ( Sullivan 35)

Works Cited

Baldwin, James. The Fire Next Time . New York: Vintage International, 1993.

Sullivan, Shannon. The Unconscious Habits of Racial Privilege . Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2006.