Racism made from the word "race"
I want to comment on class last week about the topic when the teacher wrote on the board the different names for all the races that we are so familiar with seeing on applications and so on and so forth. I left class last week and I was still thinking about the one comment a student made that was the question of why are we so caught up and concerned with labeling people in races if we are all supposed to be the same? Well this was a hard question for me because I do not think that it will ever change. My opinion is that by nature, human beings are racist, not by definition, but by the fact that they know something is different than themselves and it must be not right or tainted. It's funny but I just remembered a comment made some years ago regarding this issue that it was stated that if children had a choice, they would all play together happily; all different races and no problems. I think this is a false statement because I feel once these children grow up a bit they will come to their own conclusions that something is different and that's were racism will start. It sounds so depressing and impure to view this way, however, I think that humans are not perfect in the sense where we can totally abolish racism in the world and it is a sad thing to think about but it surrounds us everyday when we are still faced in filling out boxes that determine "what we are."
posted by HistoryLK @ 3:08 PM
2 Comments:
At 6:52 AM,
writebrain said…
I don't think I agree that children, if left to their own devices, would play happily with children of all races until they grow up, and then would later find reasons for racism on their own.
I don't think I agree with Prof. Goldstein's statement about racism being in our DNA either.
Call me an optimist, but I truly believe that racism is LEARNED. If you bring a child up in a racist environment, he or she is more likely to hold racist views. If you bring a child up, like I have tried to do, in a tolerant environment, he or she is likely to be tolerant of others.
The problem here is that although one may strive to teach tolerance, children are not brought up in a vacuum and stereotypes are everywhere to be found through messages in our media, culture, etc., so you can only do your best.
It is true that we all have our inherent preferences -- some of us prefer lasagna to Chinese food or the color blue to the color red. But these preferences are learned through experience, and even so, one can learn to enjoy all kinds of foods and colors through repeated exposure to them. If people kept telling you though, that lasagna was disgusting, you would probably not even try it.
Call me naive, but I think that in the end, if these children were left to play and grow up together without any negative interference, they would probably NOT discern any significant differences between them.
I think that that old song "You've Got To Be Taught" reflects my view entirely.
At 6:43 AM,
99venom said…
It's understandable to imagine that racism is learned but then why isn't society doing anything to change that? If it is learned, who is responsible for teaching it? As people mature they tend to believe that what they learned is true. Children are very impressionable. They learn and carry with them through their lives what they are taught.
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