Racism, Accountability, and Transformation

September 4, 2026 - 5:23 pm

Kevin P. Henry

By Kevin P. Henry for Thinking Out Loud

When confronted with racism, I usually experience powerful emotions and a strong desire to confront the offender through some kind of verbal counterattack. Sometimes, this has resulted in the termination of friendships or professional relationships.

Every encounter with racism reopens a wound that has always existed. Each experience hardens my heart just a little more. Some effects of racial trauma may never completely disappear.

The racist loses something as well: a part of their humanity dies with each hateful word they utter. Fear of people who are different, ignorance, and outside influences help them form a distorted, disparaging image of people who are not like them. They become less capable of recognizing the humanity in others—and diminish their own humanity in the process. They often spread their hateful poison to others like an infection.

Racism affects everyone it touches. The person targeted carries the trauma, while the person inflicting it becomes increasingly disconnected from empathy, compassion, and truth.

I am disturbed when someone displays racism in the workplace or on social media and people feel satisfied simply because that person is fired, sued, or publicly condemned. Accountability matters—but consequences alone are not the same as transformation. Their hate simply moves to a different location. Firing or publicly shaming someone does not necessarily eliminate their racism. It simply causes it to go back into hiding.

That is what we are witnessing in America today. Racism did not disappear. It went underground. It remained alive in private conversations, coded language, institutional practices, and unexamined beliefs.

Accountability must be more than punishment. It should also create an opportunity for education, honest reflection, responsibility, restitution, and meaningful change. Otherwise, we may remove racist behavior from our immediate view without ever confronting the hatred that produced it. It is like treating the symptoms without curing the disease.

This is Kevin P. Henry for Thinking Out Loud