The 9 Painful Stages Of Realizing You Live In A "White Person Bubble"

I understand that I don't understand.

Stage one: Unconscious enjoyment.

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"I love everybody, and everybody loves everybody! To be honest, I don’t really think about race that much, since it doesn’t really affect me."

Stage one can last anywhere from a few years to a lifetime.

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"I'm not personally racist, and neither are my friends. We're good people and we know racism is bad."

Stage two: Someone or something you see in the media tries to point out that you may be in a "white person bubble."

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Stage three: Knee-jerk reactive anger.

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"I UNDERSTAND struggle. I've had enormous hardships too!"

Stage four: Denial.

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"I voted for Obama, and I have a crush on Idris Elba? And...and...I'm human too?"

Stage five: Discovery.

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Being challenged that you're not seeing things clearly through your white person bubble leads you to read and listen more to race-related news.

Stage six: Realization.

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The horrifying realization that, no matter how you cut it, you are in fact in a white person bubble.

Stage seven: Completely freaking out and trying to pop the bubble.

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"If I quote Martin Luther King Jr., will it help?!"

Stage eight: Realizing that you, as one person in one moment of time, can't pop the bubble — yours or anyone else's.

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Stage nine: Full-on, devastating acceptance that you are in a white person bubble.

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Loryn Brantz for BuzzFeed

Continuing to look at how this affects your life and others may be the first step to seeing through our bubbles a little clearer.