Racism

If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? — Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice.

From the dark inner reaches of our unconscious mind comes our deepest fears of ourselves. We fear our anger, hatred, and loss of self control. We use the terms “dark”, “sinister”, and fill our conscious mind with terrifying unconscious fantasies.

In the classic Freudian view of the mind, we imagine that our unconscious (id) contains a dark, wild, aggressive and hyper sexual side in need of conscious control.
Racism can be understood as a projection of our own unconscious mind (or our id) onto a representative group. When our country was young, and we were bringing African slaves, their dark skin became a vehicle of projection of our unwanted fears and fantasies. As is often the case with projection, holding our anger and self hatred in another group keeps us from dealing with it within ourselves. Internal conflict and anxiety decreases. Only when we are able to finally deal with what is within all of us will we truly be able to deal with racism. Until then, we will continue to project our unwanted selves onto others and hate them as if it will get rid of the unwanted aspects of ourselves.

Our true nationality is mankind — H. G. Wells.

—Stephen Taylor, MD