This is an old article but it's interesting:

https://www.cnn.com/2014/11/26/us/ferguson-racism-or-racial-bias/index.html

The knife fight experiment hints at the language gap. Some whites confine racism to intentional displays of racial hostility. It's the Ku Klux Klan, racial slurs in public, something "bad" that people do.

But for many racial minorities, that type of racism doesn't matter as much anymore, some scholars say. They talk more about the racism uncovered in the knife fight photos -- it doesn't wear a hood, but it causes unsuspecting people to see the world through a racially biased lens.

It's what one Duke University sociologist calls "racism without racists." Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, who's written a book by that title, says it's a new way of maintaining white domination in places like Ferguson.

"The main problem nowadays is not the folks with the hoods, but the folks dressed in suits," says Bonilla-Silva.

and I'm a white male, I'll say yes. Can't really avoid it.

How well I succeed? Hard to say, but I try.

was during my college years and I felt justified, having been on the receiving end of racism and bigotry myself. I don't generalize like that anymore.

and to be aware, but it's still there. It is very likely I say things from a place of ignorance, but not out of malice.

It is also that structural thing. I benefit from my white skin and I recognize that, but am probably not fully aware of all the ways that it true.

I think that the vast majority, if not all of us, are brought up with racialized images and ideas. It is almost unavoidable The thing about the question: Are you a racist/bigot? is that it is a "yes/no" question and the answer is much more complex as gollygee pointed out in their response.

I typically do not like generalizations and blanket statements, but I would venture to say that we ALL have stereotypes, and racially biased ideas in our heads. Unless you came from an exceedingly "woke" family that completely shielded or taught you to ignore or confront the ideas and images set up by society, then those thoughts and images have been transmitted to you.

Like maxsolomon and Wounded Bear say, it isn't necessarily whether you have those things in your head, it is what you do with them. Do you accept them and think they are correct? benign? normal? OR do you actively fight those ideas and emotions and actively work to see people as influenced by their cultural upbringing, but not as a marker of the collective flaws of any particular cultural group.

We say Trump is a racist and he says, "I am the least racist person you'll ever meet" which we know is bullshit. What we should be saying or asking is, "Trump says and does things that perpetuate racial stereotypes and stoke racial tensions" AND "Do the things you think, do, and say allow racial bias to continue or challenge it?" Of course many will still deny their bias and racist thoughts and behaviors, but I think it is a better way to discern.

My wife read a story about a man near where we live, who went after an Asian family who was celebrating a birthday in a restaurant recently. He said, "Trump is going to f**k you" and "Go back to where you came from". With all of the same stupid apology, "I lost control" "That is not who I am" blah blah blah. My response, "That was certainly in your head and in your repertoire of vocabulary. It came out of your mouth and you had no problem directing it at people you knew nothing about other than from their outward appearance." Is that guy a racist/bigot? Who cares? He terrorized a group of people based solely on their perceived ethnic or racial appearance. He committed a racist act which in and of itself is unacceptable.

Trump has done so repeatedly. Whether in his "heart" and mind he is a racist (he is) is not as relevant as the fact that he continuously commits racist acts.

It is a curve and the questions is, where are you on the curve. Once you are aware of that, it puts you on the correct side of the Bell Curve and headed toward being an aware human.