My school’s male a cappella group, the Testostetones, finished holding their auditions today, and I helped judge. We actually got a fairly large turnout - I guess the T-Tones have gained some sort of reputation over the past year (for better or for worse…). But our teacher sponsor (my awesome former history teacher, Mr. Kishore) had to warn us about how to handle the auditions. When the female a cappella group held theirs a few weeks ago, several students complained to the administration, charging the group with racial prejudice with regards to selecting new members. You can imagine the ripples that caused…

Mr. Kishore knew we would be fair in the selection process - he knows that all we’re looking for is the best singers, and that’s who we’ll pick. And I was that’s what we’d do.

But then I realized that, out of my top three picks from those who auditioned, there wasn’t one black guy, even though the eight people who auditioned were pretty diverse. I wasn’t worried that I hadn’t been fair to the African American guys that tried out - I just didn’t think any of them were among the top singers of the group. So why did it end up looking like I had been playing favorites against them?

I think it was the song choice. The white guys all sang “white songs”, and the black guys all sang “black songs.” Now, being not only white, but completely out of the loop when it comes to popular music, I don’t listen to many of the songs popular amongst the African American population at my school. In fact, I think it all sounds pretty crappy and that none of the singers are very talented. Thus, when the black guys came in and sang “black songs,” I thought they weren’t as good as the guys that sang “white songs.” I’m more used to the latter, and can better distinguish who sounds good in that genre. By singing a “black song,” I subconsciously ranked certain people down in my mind because I simply can’t think of most of that type of singing as good - though that singer may very well be considered talented by those more familiar with the genre.

The result: were I to form a singing group myself, we’d almost all be white.

Is this racism? Not directly; but it certainly has the same effects - I’m treating the applicants differently as a result of interests (in this case, music choice) they were pre-disposed to have based on their racial background.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter how I try to justify it in my head - I’m still guilty of it. And it just goes to show how prejudice can exist for the reasons you least expect.

Watch out for people who claim they are completely “color-blind”. There are very few people who have been raised to not see racial differences — the rest are in denial.