Miami lawyer Adrian Arkin of insurance law firm Mintz Truppman sent an unlikely tweet into the Twitterverse, getting candid about how her perception of black people has evolved since the 1980s — when sitcom “Diff'rent Strokes” regularly appeared on America's TV screens.

Quote from a tweet by Miami attorney Adrian Arkin

Arkin said she stands by her tweet, but stressed that the opinion is her own, not that of her firm.

“I'm proud of the tweet,” she said. “I thought it was an important tweet and I thought it was an important thing to say.”

Twitter is no stranger to personal anecdotes, but Arkin said she fears the tweet might be “incorrectly read.”

“Nobody who's ever met me would say that I am shy about subjects that other people won't mention. I definitely think we need to talk about these things,” she said. “We do talk about these things inside the firm, because they affect everything. But that still doesn't mean that it's the persona of the firm. The firm is an insurance law group.”

Arkin's post came on the heels of a group discussion about Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, who faces heavy criticism over his college yearbook page, displaying a photo of one man in blackface and another wearing a Ku Klux Klan costume.

“I don't remember ever having those kind of thoughts, but I think it's always important to point out that we are brought up in a society that teaches us this,” Arkin said. “We're taught racism from day one. It's part of the system.”

'It's a journey'

Melba Pearson, Deputy Director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida. Courtesy photo.

The tweet was refreshingly self-aware in the eyes of Melba V. Pearson, president of the Gwen S. Cherry Black Women Lawyers Association and deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida.

“I commend what [Arkin's] saying because [she's] understanding that this is a journey. You don't wake up one day and you're no longer racist,” Pearson said. ”It's evolution, it's constant education. And you have to make the conscious effort to expose yourself to people who are different than you.”

The way Pearson sees it, it's easy for law firms to overlook the need to continually work on eradicating implicit bias.

“If you're like, 'Check, we do a Black History Month event. Check, we do something around MLK,' and that's the last that you talk about race for the next 365 days, that's not moving the needle forward,” Pearson said.

Because implicit racial bias, by nature, isn't obvious, Pearson hopes more lawyers and firms will follow Arkin's lead in talking openly about it.

“Firms and other corporations sometimes think it's lovely to do a one-day training on implicit bias, or a one-day training on equity and inclusion,” Pearson said. “That's not enough, because you can't undo years of a particular way of thinking in a two-hour session.”

The post also appealed to Monique D. Hayes, president of the Wilkie D. Ferguson Jr. Bar Association.

“I think we have to appreciate racism for what it is — ignorance. The most vile form of ignorance, but ignorance nonetheless,” Hayes said. “We have to give people room to learn and move beyond their ignorance. As Maya Angelou said, 'When you know better, do better.' ”

In Hayes' view, there's a massive difference between having once believed in a white-savior trope and having dressed up as a Ku Klux Klan member.

“ Both scenarios are rooted in racism, but one also reflects a callousness that is wholly incompatible with public trust,” Hayes said.

Cole, Scott & Kissane's Trelvis Randolph, former Wilkie D. Ferguson Jr. Bar Association president, said that honest, open dialogue about race is always a positive thing.

“It's something that we tend to, as a nation, shy away from,” Randolph said. “It's very sensitive for obvious reasons, from all points of view. However, until we can begin to actually have these conversations, it will always be a sensitive subject. it will always be something that people shy away from.”

In addition to talking about racial bias, Arkin wants to see people tackling it.

“The problem is that just looking back and thinking, 'Oh, I used to think like this' doesn't solve the problem either,” she said. “We have to have a world where the system changes so that kids aren't unaware of these issues from day one.”

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