As part of the Be More campaign, John A. Powell writes about racism as it relates to the unconscious mind. “…we need to look to the unconscious mind, which plays a critical role in creating the discrepancy between our aspirations and our reality,” says Powell. He compares both orders of racism, the old one and the new one. The old order is the type of racial reality in which people of different races despise each other and carry out cruel thoughts and actions toward each other simply because they are conscious about the fact that they represent two different races. The ‘odd man out’, or the person who is out of the borders of “whiteness”, as Powell puts it, is the person who will receive criticism and racist remarks since he is the conscious target for the racists. On the other hand, the new order of racism is one that is based on unconscious doings and subconscious realizations. It is a new yet destructive order of racial reality nowadays, both mentally and physically. Older generations fueled racism by consciously segregating themselves from the colored people, meanwhile upcoming generations sustain and keep racism at a homeostatic environment.

I believe racism doesn’t really exist, it’s just present. Racism has an unavoidable presence in the subconscious world of our minds. We do not coerce the regeneration of racism, we enforce the infantry to make racism seem present. Our unconscious daily thoughts and reflections are snips gathered and stored by more specific conscious actions we and other people exercise throughout the day. According to biologist Bruce Lipton, “[T]he subconscious mind, one of the most powerful information processes known, specifically observes both the surrounding world and the body’s internal awareness, reads the cues, and immediately engages previously acquired (learned) behaviors—all without the help, supervision, or even awareness of the conscious mind.” The subconscious mind can sustain itself without any help. It is so independent that it can generate a pulsating rhythm of its own with extended veins and nerves which capture moments of conscious sentiments and feelings and interpret and translate them into the subconscious being. Powell spreads a powerful message to us unconscious racists: “We need to create and foster new experiences that can override our biased beliefs in order to build an unconscious that functions from and seeks to reinforce mores of equality and fairness. We cannot move towards our goals of fairness and equality until we find ways to nurture the alignment of our unconscious with our conscious values.” The struggle between the conscious and unconscious mind is by far the greatest struggle. What we think in one specific way does not always correlate to how we act the other way. Once we settle the tension between the conscious and unconscious, we can begin to appreciate the present racial reality optimistically and help galvanize racial equality. According to Powell, in order to do that we must communicate and experience differently. We must create and entice favorable and friendly connections in order to make our unconscious minds dependent on our conscious minds; we must be more conscious about our actions and thoughts, especially towards racism. “Being a morally upright American has come to mean you refuse to consciously engage in behavior motivated by race or to act with consciously racist motivation.” (Understanding Our New Racial Reality Starts with the Unconscious, Powell)