how our brains work to reinforce racial oppression

There is no scientific or genetic basis for race, but we have been so influenced by this construct.  How does the brain approach skin color, which is not a problem, but we have made it a problem through the social construction and hierarchy of race?  Our brains work to deal with the cognitive dissonance through various defenses and tactics depending on whether we have internalized inferiority or superiority.  Here are some ways the brain, as a white person, manifests white superiority: 

INDIVIDUALISM
*Pull yourself up by your bootstraps.  We all have to take responsibility for our individual lives.  Individuals should be kind and respectful to one another no matter our color of skin. (while personal responsibility and respect/kindness is important, we fail to accurately see or address history and oppressive systems of power at play).   The brain has also been trained to see some things through the eyes of individualism and some things through the eyes of group think.  For example, most mass shootings in America are committed by white men, but we see each of those men as troubled individuals, while we assign suspicion and guilt to an entire people group if a person of color commits a crime.  

ENTITLEMENT 
*I worked hard and earned all that I have.  I'm entitled to my rights and privacy and benefits.  I am offended when someone intrudes or questions my privilege.  (we may have worked hard for what we have, but we often fail to see and care about how we have benefited from injustice while others have suffered from it.)

DENIAL
*I don't have a problem.  I am not at racist. I am not involved in racist practices.  We are post-racist...look at all the people of color in high offices and top positions now.  (denial keeps us from seeing deeper realities.  We fail to see our interconnectedness and how we are all involved, all victims of a faulty racist narrative that has continued to morph and exist throughout our history.) 

EXCEPTIONALISM
*Anglo-Americans are special, chosen, set apart and have protected status.  This is a mindset of American Manifest Destiny.  That those who escaped religious persecution across the ocean were destined to this Promised Land and could take this land in conquest as a gift from God.  (this is where Christian faith and racism have some pretty ugly roots to dig out and separate.)  

One way to move forward on this journey of anti-racism is to continue to learn about how racism has internalized and affects our minds and our thinking.  This article that I read this morning (an interview with Robin DiAngelo) was excellent and offers 5 tasks for white people who are struggling with the issue of race.

There is also a 21 Day Racial Equity Habit Building Challenge referenced in this article that I think would be a great challenge as well.