It has taken a lifetime of reflection for a spiritual writer to confront the truth that good-heartedness and racism can coexist in white people. Unconscious racism is still racism, and exists because white people are blind to the privilege they enjoy which, like the air they breathe, they don’t see

I grew up in a good family. Our parents instilled in us, non-negotiably, the notion that everyone on this planet was equal, regardless of race or colour, and that we were never to look down on anyone or consider ourselves superior to anyone. The very idea of racism or racial privilege was repugnant to me. Every moral fibre in me was anti-racist.

But I also grew up in a white family in a totally white community in a totally white rural area. The only non-whites I ever saw were one Chinese couple who ran a local cafe, and they kept to themselves. The only African Americans I ever saw were athletes on television, playing football, baseball and basketball. Our entire community was white. I can honestly say that I never talked to a non-white person before I went to graduate school in my early twenties. I had no experience of relating to other races, even as every bone in my body told me I was not a racist.

After my ordination to the priesthood, at the age of 25, my religious community, the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, sent me to San Francisco to do a graduate degree in theology. By then, thanks to my later seminary studies in Edmonton, I’d already had some minimal contact with African Americans and Black Africans, all of which had been positive and friendly, reinforcing my naive sense that I was above racial prejudice.