“Have you ever had a racist thought?” Barbara Trepagnier asked.

She waited, then answered her own question, “That’s silent racism.”

Trepagnier, the author of “Silent Racism: How Well-Meaning White People Perpetuate the Racial Divide” spoke to students and faculty Thursday night in Mass Media Auditorium about research she did on silent racism.

Silent racism is racism that isn’t intended for anyone to hear. Most of the time the person doesn’t even realize he or she is thinking it.

“Silent racism isn’t always mean-spirited,” Trepagnier said. “It’s something that permeates our society,” she said. “It’s like when a white woman and her small son are walking down the street and the mother sees a black guy walking towards them. She might grab the little boys hand harder, draw him in or even cross the street. The child is going to notice that apparently the black guy is dangerous or scary and remember that moment in his head later in life.”

Trepagnier did a study with 26 “well-meaning” white women that care about racism in America. The study took place in her living room and they broke into smaller groups and answered some questions about what they would say out loud and what they would only think.

Eventually, the women opened up and started to speak about their own statements or thoughts about racism. At the end of the study, she gave each woman a little blue book and had them write down their racist thoughts for three weeks.

“One of my professors told me ‘I’m not racist,’” Trepagnier said. “Then, when I challenged him, he thought about things or perceptions of people that he had and realized that what he was doing wasn’t on purpose or mean-spirited by any means, but he had racist thoughts at times.”

Before the event started, a line of students waited at the doors.

“I think I still would have come without the extra credit,” said Ashley Chervinko, a sophomore from Gilberts, Ill. “It sounds like an interesting topic.”

Communication Instructor Donna Renaud said one of the professors she had over the summer sent word of the event to her class and that made her want to attend.

“Dr. T feels that it’s OK to speak about racism,” Renaud said. “Although we might mess up, it’s OK to talk about it.”

Trepagnier was brought to Western by the Office of Diversity Programs.

Vee Smith, assistant to the director of the Office of Diversity Programs, said she read Trepagnier’s book and was intrigued by her research.

“I thought her ideas could broaden the perspectives of both faculty and students,” Smith said. “In a post-Obama era, race is still very important.”

Hall Director Tim Gray said silent racism isn’t a new idea for everyone.

“There were a lot of students in attendance today, so what she did was good,” he said. “But for some of us, we already knew that silent racism was around and we’ve been teaching our children the differences in people from a young age.”

Trepagnier said the way to deal with silent racism is to teach children at an early age that there are differences in people and that those differences are acceptable and make people unique. Talking about race in more personal settings will help break silent racism.

“Decide tonight that you’ll interrupt racism,” Trepagnier said. “I don’t have any magic words to help you, but if you stop it from occurring, then silent racism will slowly die.”