This fallacy limits the scope of a person's perception of racism. It is the belief that racism is based solely on prejudices and negative connotations that an individual has towards other races. Through this fallacy, racism is dramatically and incorrectly simplified to justify and categorize us as racist or non-racist. The spectrum of individualistic fallacy portrays only the extremes of racism at the individual level. One of the driving reasons for the generalization of the taxonomy of racism is the awareness of the ridicule and harsh stigma associated with a racist. Evidently, we try to absolve ourselves of being “ignorant” and this completely ostracizes the aforementioned institutional racism and the habitual, well-intentioned qualities of everyday racism. To convey the widespread effect of racism, Beverly Tatum, president of Spelman College, used this analogy comparing racism to pollution. He states, “day after day, we breathe it in” (p.34). The analogy is a representation of the scope and relativity of racism. Therefore, to limit our mindset to mere prejudice and “racist” or “non-racist” is to ignore the real problems and create a very simplified version of the complexity that is racism. There are very many examples of this misconception which, it seems, is swallowed up by the psyche of the vast majority of the population. A vivid example of this mistake was illustrated to me when one of my assistant managers at my work said the words "don't jump to conclusions" in a joking manner. A Hispanic couple entered the store asking the manager to sign paperwork for a job they had been assigned to complete. Another manager suspected fraud and dishonesty even though the workers had all the required documentation. After everything was cleared up, my deputy editor joked about not jumping to conclusions, and it was at this moment that I realized that often