Sorry to break my hiatus so quickly, but I got curious and found your question to be too interesting to pass up. Here goes.
I'm probably terribly wrong, and this comment may be full of superfluous garbage and obvious observations, but here's one take on it.
For starters, people usually don't think logically; I know, obvious, but we've got to start somewhere, so bare with me. They think they do, and they think that their reasons for their behaviors and their beliefs are rooted in reason and rationality, but this is often not the case; generally, people do not start from logical premises and reach conclusions from them. Rather, people often start off with subconscious feelings that their experiences and cultures have primed them to feel, and then they employ all their gifts of rationality for the purpose of defending the beliefs they already hold; they start at the gut level, and proceed to use their reasoning skills to build edifices on these grounds.
The subconscious is a powerful thing. Many of the things that your subconscious is responsible for are things that you are generally not even in control of; breathing, blinking, the roads you take when you're driving to a location you've been to hundreds a times before (until you get lost, and your conscious mind begins to kick in). Most of this is automatic; the subconscious does these sorts of things to make things easier for your conscious brain. Your subconscious is the reason why you don't have to constantly think about the motions you make while you're walking or driving. Many of our ways of thinking are also controlled by certain thoughts and ways of thinking that we've internalized, and our environment can do a great job of priming our subconscious to react in certain ways or influence our thoughts without our realization. Priming is often unconscious, and most people aren't aware of the ways that they've been primed by their environment.
If a person has been primed to think of a certain group of people as 'dangerous,' whether it be by the news, their family, or some other outlet, it will be incredibly difficult to get them to think otherwise. Take muslims, for example. Though there are roughly six million muslims in the United States (last I checked), the few of these that are terrorists tend to ruin it for the majority of muslims that aren't terrorists. Because muslims are a minority and most people's experience with them and knowledge of them comes directly from the media they consume, plenty of people may feel inclined to engage in bigotry towards them. This usually isn't the case for those that actually know muslims, as the familiarity with actual living, breathing muslims tends to prime people to think differently about them. Though there are plenty of non-muslim terrorists (in fact, the majority of terrorists are non-muslim, if I remember correctly), the media has great power in influencing the way people think about muslims; if they report more muslim acts of terrorism, people will generally tend to assume that muslims are more likely to be terrorists, much like if the news begins to focus more on shark attacks, people will assume that shark attacks are on the rise, even if the actual number of shark attacks hasn't increased (people never consider that maybe the news just likes sensational pieces, and that the news has just decided to report more shark attacks).
Anyways, certain habits of thinking can pretty much become ingrained in a person due to their experiences and the media (I know, obvious), but the problem is that it can be incredibly hard to get rid of it by reasoning alone, for at least two reasons (though there are probably many more that I'm not aware of):
1. You're asking them to use the newer parts of their brains (the parts responsible for conscious thinking and logical thought processes), to override much older parts of the brain, those being the reptilian parts of the brain that govern the subconscious.
2. As it was said previously, people don't actually base most of their beliefs or behaviors on the rational thought processes of their conscious brains; they mostly only use the reasoning parts of their brains to defend beliefs they've come to for largely emotional or subconscious reasons.
And the real clencher? People don't pay attention to information which contradicts their beliefs either; though they think that they've come to their beliefs based on reason and evidence, they mostly only pay attention to evidence which appears to confirm their beliefs, while finding reasons to ignore any information which contradicts their deeply held beliefs (this is known as "confirmation bias"). Add all of this together, and it's gonna be a real bitch to try and convince people to drop their beliefs on reason alone.
The media representations and cultural depictions of black people probably contribute to people's bigotry towards them; even though the majority of blacks aren't criminals, because a lot of criminals happen to be black, people will probably be primed to associate blacks with crime and certain undesirable behaviors if they are repeatedly subjected to this sort of information about blacks via the media, word-of-mouth, or some other source. The fastest and most effective way to eviscerate these preconceptions would be for people to reprise themselves and have more positive experiences with black people, but because the United States (I'm just assuming you're American, sorry if that's not the case) is actually still segregated to a great degree via the intersections of class and race, it's highly unlikely that many whites are ever going to build these positive experiences with blacks. The stereotypes about blacks don't help; because of the things that are often said about blacks, whites are often too afraid to consider ever actually living amongst them to any great degree, and because there's a huge intersection of class and race in this country, with blacks generally being of lower socio-economic standing than whites, whites will generally tend to buy nicer houses in classier neighborhoods, further segregating the two.
The intersection of race and class is important for another reason; because blacks are often of lower socio-economic standing compared to whites, blacks are often affected by the elements of their class, and this is often seen as something intrinsic to their race. People who are of lower classes tend to be less educated, more belligerent, and more prone to crime than those of higher classes, including white people of lower classes; ever seen the way rednecks and white trash behave? The reason why we don't assume that all whites are like this, however, is because whites are generally found in all socio-economic levels of America, including the middle and upper classes. Blacks, however, because they are generally prone to being working-class or lower on the socio-economic ladder, are more likely to have elements of their class attributed to their race.
Sorry, but I'm kind of blanking out now. I hope this comment wasn't too stupid or too long.
yes it was too stupid and too long. I only had to skim a few lines to see what an enormous pile of bullshit you shat out there, and what a complete and total moron you revealed yourself to be
IIN to wonder why people dislike african americans and judge quickly?
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Sorry to break my hiatus so quickly, but I got curious and found your question to be too interesting to pass up. Here goes.
I'm probably terribly wrong, and this comment may be full of superfluous garbage and obvious observations, but here's one take on it.
For starters, people usually don't think logically; I know, obvious, but we've got to start somewhere, so bare with me. They think they do, and they think that their reasons for their behaviors and their beliefs are rooted in reason and rationality, but this is often not the case; generally, people do not start from logical premises and reach conclusions from them. Rather, people often start off with subconscious feelings that their experiences and cultures have primed them to feel, and then they employ all their gifts of rationality for the purpose of defending the beliefs they already hold; they start at the gut level, and proceed to use their reasoning skills to build edifices on these grounds.
The subconscious is a powerful thing. Many of the things that your subconscious is responsible for are things that you are generally not even in control of; breathing, blinking, the roads you take when you're driving to a location you've been to hundreds a times before (until you get lost, and your conscious mind begins to kick in). Most of this is automatic; the subconscious does these sorts of things to make things easier for your conscious brain. Your subconscious is the reason why you don't have to constantly think about the motions you make while you're walking or driving. Many of our ways of thinking are also controlled by certain thoughts and ways of thinking that we've internalized, and our environment can do a great job of priming our subconscious to react in certain ways or influence our thoughts without our realization. Priming is often unconscious, and most people aren't aware of the ways that they've been primed by their environment.
If a person has been primed to think of a certain group of people as 'dangerous,' whether it be by the news, their family, or some other outlet, it will be incredibly difficult to get them to think otherwise. Take muslims, for example. Though there are roughly six million muslims in the United States (last I checked), the few of these that are terrorists tend to ruin it for the majority of muslims that aren't terrorists. Because muslims are a minority and most people's experience with them and knowledge of them comes directly from the media they consume, plenty of people may feel inclined to engage in bigotry towards them. This usually isn't the case for those that actually know muslims, as the familiarity with actual living, breathing muslims tends to prime people to think differently about them. Though there are plenty of non-muslim terrorists (in fact, the majority of terrorists are non-muslim, if I remember correctly), the media has great power in influencing the way people think about muslims; if they report more muslim acts of terrorism, people will generally tend to assume that muslims are more likely to be terrorists, much like if the news begins to focus more on shark attacks, people will assume that shark attacks are on the rise, even if the actual number of shark attacks hasn't increased (people never consider that maybe the news just likes sensational pieces, and that the news has just decided to report more shark attacks).
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nobody13
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(cont).
Anyways, certain habits of thinking can pretty much become ingrained in a person due to their experiences and the media (I know, obvious), but the problem is that it can be incredibly hard to get rid of it by reasoning alone, for at least two reasons (though there are probably many more that I'm not aware of):
1. You're asking them to use the newer parts of their brains (the parts responsible for conscious thinking and logical thought processes), to override much older parts of the brain, those being the reptilian parts of the brain that govern the subconscious.
2. As it was said previously, people don't actually base most of their beliefs or behaviors on the rational thought processes of their conscious brains; they mostly only use the reasoning parts of their brains to defend beliefs they've come to for largely emotional or subconscious reasons.
And the real clencher? People don't pay attention to information which contradicts their beliefs either; though they think that they've come to their beliefs based on reason and evidence, they mostly only pay attention to evidence which appears to confirm their beliefs, while finding reasons to ignore any information which contradicts their deeply held beliefs (this is known as "confirmation bias"). Add all of this together, and it's gonna be a real bitch to try and convince people to drop their beliefs on reason alone.
The media representations and cultural depictions of black people probably contribute to people's bigotry towards them; even though the majority of blacks aren't criminals, because a lot of criminals happen to be black, people will probably be primed to associate blacks with crime and certain undesirable behaviors if they are repeatedly subjected to this sort of information about blacks via the media, word-of-mouth, or some other source. The fastest and most effective way to eviscerate these preconceptions would be for people to reprise themselves and have more positive experiences with black people, but because the United States (I'm just assuming you're American, sorry if that's not the case) is actually still segregated to a great degree via the intersections of class and race, it's highly unlikely that many whites are ever going to build these positive experiences with blacks. The stereotypes about blacks don't help; because of the things that are often said about blacks, whites are often too afraid to consider ever actually living amongst them to any great degree, and because there's a huge intersection of class and race in this country, with blacks generally being of lower socio-economic standing than whites, whites will generally tend to buy nicer houses in classier neighborhoods, further segregating the two.
The intersection of race and class is important for another reason; because blacks are often of lower socio-economic standing compared to whites, blacks are often affected by the elements of their class, and this is often seen as something intrinsic to their race. People who are of lower classes tend to be less educated, more belligerent, and more prone to crime than those of higher classes, including white people of lower classes; ever seen the way rednecks and white trash behave? The reason why we don't assume that all whites are like this, however, is because whites are generally found in all socio-economic levels of America, including the middle and upper classes. Blacks, however, because they are generally prone to being working-class or lower on the socio-economic ladder, are more likely to have elements of their class attributed to their race.
Sorry, but I'm kind of blanking out now. I hope this comment wasn't too stupid or too long.
And now I'll disappear.
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dahztoyevskeet
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yes it was too stupid and too long. I only had to skim a few lines to see what an enormous pile of bullshit you shat out there, and what a complete and total moron you revealed yourself to be
Uh oh. Looks like someone can't stay out of hiatus long enough to keep his feewingz from getting hurt and down voting people. Loser.
Hiatus? If it means I won't have to sit through anymore tedious posts like that for a while, I'm all for it.