Ask Your Question today
Is racism inborn, or can it be avoided completely?
| No, racism is inborn and inherent. | 3 | |
| Not really, it's an instinct that we're born with. | 12 | |
| Yes, but not completely. | 28 | |
| Yes, racism is entirely in peoples' heads and can be avoided. | 48 | |
| I'm not sure (comment your reasoning) | 5 |
A black friend of mine grew up in a largely white community and he always says that until someone used a racial slur against him, aged eleven, he'd never really felt different from anyone else.
Judging someone based on skin color or heritage is a completely unreliable method. Yes you can gather some cultural differences, about half the time - for instance, a matronly Indian woman with an accent you could guess would be proud of her heritage & still holding on to some beliefs/practices/traditions - but our society is just too blended to assume much of anything based on an individual's race.
That being said, racism is ignorant, stupid, and is something that is learned. If you take a baby away from a skinhead and adopt them with any other white family not affiliated with such racial groups, chances are the child would NOT be racist.
Experiments have shown that when they ask very young children to list the differences between each other, one child black and the other white, they NEVER mention skin colour! So I believe it has to be learned - but I wish someone would tell me the the reason for racism. I just believe it's an accident of birth where you are born or what colour. I have no problem with anyone at all.
Racism is nothing but someone's stupid idea. And were all racists. No one is innocent of discrimination. The only way to fight racism is to show love. A guy rejected me bc of my race said he wasn't into dating "my color" and i got angry and told him off. Later on I apologized and told him that I was sorry that I snapped and sorry he felt the way he did and I told him I forgave him. Later on we became friends. He told me that my kindness made him take interest in me....so through understanding and just talking things out people can get along and put petty shit behind them, like hating each other bc of aesthetics.
I don't know, my kids always say they hate the black dolls at the store, and recently a black girl joined my daughter's class and she told me about it. She said 'There's a new girl in my class, but she's brown' and made a yucky face. No one taught them that. Oh and one other time, my littlest one was mad at her dad and called him a 'black man' as an insult I guess.
They've obviously heard it from other 'racist' kids or maybe TV. My son went to nursery school until he was 4yo. One day he asked me what 'fat' meant. I asked him where he heard that word and he said the other kids were teasing a little girl about her mom. I asked what her mom looked like and he said she had blonde hair like me.
Another time he asked me if I'd had my hair dyed. When I asked him where he learned the word 'dyed' he said he just heard his teachers talking about me!
Never underestimate what they pick up!
In my home, we don't talk about other people in a nasty way or use insulting words that he may have heard. He never watched TV either so we were really in control of what he learned - except for nursery school :o( Funnily enough his best friend there was Chinese! We live in a very mixed community and I've never heard him describe anyone by colour, just as I wouldn't.
I know its awful to laugh at this, but I just couldnt help it at all. I probably would have laughed if my kids said this to me, which would be a terrible reinforcement.
I posted an example.
It's probably more relevant to people living in Africa.
(There's a local saying that "The difference between a tourist and a racist is one week")
In Short: Cultural differences between certain races in certain regions cause them to behave in a manner that is unacceptable by the standards of another race.
I think it is something that we pick up from the environment we live in. We come to hate a race after the vast majority of them do something to upset us. It probably can't be reversed unless a large number of people from that race can prove to you that your previous experiences don't define them.
I've come to generally hate black people because, where I live:
*They are the worst and most dangerous drivers on the road.
*They make up the majority of our criminals.
*Most of them are always rude and badly mannered.
*They are selfish (They don't care who they hurt in getting what they want, even others of their own race)
*They are hateful (They treat everyone badly)
*They are racist too. (They will rape and murder whites for the sake of killing whites, for some reason they hate whites more than other races)
I understand that this does not represent all of them, but a large amount of them in the area where I live that have brought their race into disrepute.
I do not feel this way about any other races. All the Whites, Asians, Indians, and people from other races that I've met were always friendly and gave me a good impression.
TL;DR: It's because they make us hate them.
racism, like many other things, comes fron your parents. for example, i'm fine with asians, blacks, abos, muslims, and all others. BUT, i hate greeks. i have a legitimate reason though. my mother used to date a greel guy, and whenever we went to his friends/families places, the men would always beat their women and children. i have never met a greek man who didn't do this, let alone one that wasn't a total bogan. he also stalked us for two years and ruined my childhood.
When I was a kid, to me people were like different coloured cats, I didn't see race, just variation of humans.
I also assumed we were all the same, but then learned that I was behind the curve on this and began to accept some racial prejudices. Not because I was racist, but because I experienced racism as an Indian person and saw others through the same lens, which actually was very eye-opening.
Treating others as equals I would say is a more noble quality, since racism/prejudice is generally a very narrow/ignorant perspective. But that only works if everyone feels the same way. I've found that European whites (like Italian/Portugese/Greek/Caucasus) tend to be more racist than the North Americans.
I'd also say humans are at their ugliest when they are racist-I've had a couple of unpleasant incidents with some white people because of their racism-but it was very rare. Generally I get along extremely well with whites and I find the non-racist ones tend to be great people.
The most racism I've experienced is from black people though, who I consider to be a very despicable race as a result. I'd say 80% of blacks are garbage, the rest are nice, but I don't really give a shit about them-I'd like them all to be sent back to Africa. I've just had too many bad experiences with black people to ever like that race. Plus I consider them to be rather ugly also.
I'm not a fan of the Asian race, but I do like the more middle-class asians who are decent people and I find that some asian girls are hot.
In all honesty how you are raised plays a huge role in it, BUT even if you were raised in the most equality conscientious household that could ever exist the older you get the more you get to see how true many of the stereotypes are that exist. Its just a part of life and living. Doesnt make me or anyone else a racist, just an observer.
It really depends, I will be quite honest with you.
I was bullied quite a bit as a child by black people who told me that white people hated black people before I even noticed that there was a difference between us. I have had many experiences with black people being mean or rude to me than I have any other race, and while I am not racist, I have more of a tendency to feel reserved and afraid of black people. When they are in groups and being loud and noisy, I tend to try to avoid them and look away. It's an irrational fear that I have a hard time helping, but it does not keep me from acting respectable towards them.
Now, someone less like me in temprament may have let that experience make them into a full on racist. Some people learn it as acceptable from their peers who learn that from their role models and so on and so forth. Racial divisions are still present amongst every race, but I feel that if people didn't point out what made us different on such a frequent basis, and it wasn't talked about like what makes us DIFFERENT is the defining aspect of our character, then maybe we might get somewhere with this getting rid of prejudiced thing.
TL;DR, we all have control over our thoughts but we can't always control our feelings, just how we act on them. We can teach ourselves not to hate, but for some of us, that requires rejecting beliefs that those close to us hold near and dear to them, or beliefs that we were taught or learned from experience and that is very difficult (but possible) to do.