I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I absolutely loath my thoughts sometimes. I grew up in a welcoming family and I currently work with immigrants from all over the world. When I work with them I don’t even notice skin color or anything except their personalities and what I can do to help. I love to travel around the world and when I am there, there are many many people that are welcoming. When I have a conversation with someone of a different race I don’t notice. I have FRIENDS of many different backgrounds and I love working with children.
But…
When I go to the grocery store or out walking, sometimes my thoughts betray me. I hate this. It makes me feel like a crappy person and it’s not something I want to think or want to be. I have said nothing of this to anyone in real life because I can’t bear to think of what they would think of me if I did. How do I get this to stop?
Sometimes when you obsess over things like “inappropriate thoughts”, that just makes them more powerful. It’s like if I kept telling you “Don’t you dare think about an elephant right now!” - it would be hard not to think of it if I keep making it a focus.
Everyone has fleeting inappropriate thoughts about one subject or another. I would wager that pretty much everyone has fleeting thoughts that are unkind about other people (not necessarily race-focused, but just about other people in general). I think if you can accept that it’s okay to have these kinds of thoughts as long as you’re not acting on them or verbalizing them, then you’re probably going to be less focused on them and therefore naturally stop having these thoughts so much.
It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person just because a random thought pops into your head that isn’t socially acceptable. You have the sense not to say or do things based on these thoughts, and that’s enough.
I sympathize with this, and earnestly. I think you can have a marginal influence on this tendency by having as many relationships as deeply as possible with people different from you. But I also think you have to accept what you do as the thing that really matters, and make the best of it. Probably, the people you are interacting with can only try to do the same.
Assuming you are serious, you should attempt to seek out positive examples of the racial groups you tend to think bad things about. You should travel more to broaden your horizons, and take yourself out of your comfort zone. You should also accept that it will take some time to evolve, but if you are sincere about it, you can become the person you are intended to be.
If after years of observation you notice specific patterns you deem negative from various groups then that is a logical outcome of your observations. If you act on those observations preemptively then you’re experiencing bias.
No one knows anyone’s ugly, sordid thoughts unless they talk about them. It’s what you do that people base their “credits” on. Not the invisible energy in your head.
You’re talking to the queen of guilty thoughts. There isn’t a day that goes by when someone doesn’t do something in my presence that makes me want to ring their <fill in the blank> neck. They are rarely race-based thoughts, but this doesn’t make the non-racial thoughts any less mean and hateful.
So I figure I have two choices. Sit around moping about how mean and hateful I am inside (not knowing whether I am more mean and hateful inside than anyone else) or I can concentrate on how I interact with people and hope that the feelings/thoughts come around on their own time. I can help what I do. I can hold my tongue when I’m tempted to lash out. I can choose to be complimentary instead of insulting. I can control the inflection of my voice so that I don’t sound like a cold aloof robot. But I can’t control how I feel about someone’s bright orange sweater, though. If it’s ugly, it’s ugly. They don’t need to know this is how I feel and I don’t need to fixate it above everything else, but I don’t need to feel ashamed about my reaction.
And I really meant what I said about turning some of your observations towards your own “kind”. Instead of seeing yourself as a member of a group, practicing seeing yourself as an outsider to all groups. Over time, you’ll see how screwed up everyone is and the flaws of any one particular group stop seeming like such a big deal.
Continue to follow your heart. Prejudice certainly does exist and partially defines us as human, and we know there is an entire range of socially conditioned influences we all can succumb to, but the fact that you’re conscious of your ideas and attitudes, is what makes the difference. If you were blindly giving way to them, in fits of total ignorance, that would present a greater problem.
Personally, I think you should continue to do what you’re doing-- interact with people as you normally do, and let their thoughts, ideas, experiences (as they communicate them), and actions speak for themselves.
And your thoughts don’t “betray” you. They’re serving their intended purpose, getting you to play things out in your head and actively think/rationalize as an intellectual, before bearing your decisions/actions before the world.
This is why it’s good that we’re not mind readers.
This is exactly right. Thoughts are uncontrollable, but they’re just words in your head. Treat them as a tape that’s playing, that you can stop at any point. You can either act on the thoughts, or disregard what they are saying to you. Say to yourself: thanks for the input, brain, now let’s move on.
Yup. I grew up in a racist part of the rural Midwest, so occasionally racist thoughts kind of come with the territory. I also have violent thoughts, elitist thoughts, selfish thoughts, etc. For a long time I thought it meant I was a bad, awful, horrible person until I finally got the nerve to tell my therapist about all the awful, horrible things I thought about. She didn’t even blink. She was just like, ‘‘Oh, that’s normal. The difference is most people have those thoughts and are able to let them go, instead of obsessing over what they mean.’’
Being aware that they exist is enough to decide whether to act on them or not. I speak through my actions. Nobody should be judged (or judge themselves) because of their thoughts. You’d just as easily hold back the tide.
I cannot help specifically with your situation but I can give you some possible help - do some research on dealing with intrusive thoughts/mindfulness exercises. They wont stop the thoughts but may help to shift them along quicker.
Please note I am not implying you have any sort of mental condition just the some of these techniques might be of help to you
You cannot control every thought that pops into your head. It is not humanly possible. Therefore, you are not the sum of your every thought. What defines you is which thoughts you choose to dwell on. It is the thoughts that you dwell on that lead to actions.
