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.
Can people control whether or not they're racist?
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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.