Racism -- Can We Beat It?

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Here's what I honestly believe: children will naturally grow up to be non-racist adults only when they live in a non-racist society. Otherwise, they will pick up the attitudes of the society in which they are nurtured.

If an adult is hoping to raise a non-racist child, then they are totally responsible for guiding their children's non-racist development. This will include the helping them to achieve:

1. accurate knowledge and pride about their own racial/cultural identity
2. accurate knowledge and appreciation of other racial and cultural groups
3. an understanding of how racism works and how to combat it

But only in that way can it ever be beaten. It is almost impossible for us, as adults, to unlearn our most basic feelings about things.

 

[Eddi]

I voted "no"

Sadly, I see it as too big a part of the human condition to ever be overcome

I think that it can however be pushed further and further towards the margins of society

 

[`mud]

explain those `margins` ?

 

[sun rise]

I'd add being honest to the OP. Children pick up on parents attitudes automatically. Many if not most of us have racist reactions that come up.

I know it's come up in my life. After my parents were dead and their house was going on the market, someone told me something like "can you avoid selling the house to 'them'. I knew who 'them' was - the black folk who lived a few blocks away.

I know that stereotype was in my consciousness because, among other things, my father had some rental property that was located in a black area. I heard stories about what "they" had done to an apartment.

Does that live within my now? yes. Do I approve of it? no. The way I try to combat it is to recognize when such thoughts come to me, to understand that's not who I want to be and to reject them by deliberately thinking more positive thoughts.

 

[ChristineM]

I would love racism to be zero, it is a blight on society. My parents were great role models with friends of several nationalities, i grew up with those friends as role models too.

However i afraid i had to vote no. I think some people will be racist no matter how they are raised to think of others simply because they can..

 

[rrobs]

Here's what I honestly believe: children will naturally grow up to be non-racist adults only when they live in a non-racist society. Otherwise, they will pick up the attitudes of the society in which they are nurtured.

If an adult is hoping to raise a non-racist child, then they are totally responsible for guiding their children's non-racist development. This will include the helping them to achieve:

1. accurate knowledge and pride about their own racial/cultural identity
2. accurate knowledge and appreciation of other racial and cultural groups
3. an understanding of how racism works and how to combat it

But only in that way can it ever be beaten. It is almost impossible for us, as adults, to unlearn our most basic feelings about things.

I think a key phrase you used is, "if an adult is hoping to raise a non-racist child..."

The word is "an" indicates one adult. While 24% of white children grow up without a father in the family, a whopping 65% of black children grow up without a father. That is almost 3 times the rate for white children. That is pretty close to the same disparity between blacks and whites in education, income, incarceration, and more. Coincidence?

I am not making a moral judgment, just pointing out the reality.

 

[Heyo]

I'm not sure we can overcome racism. We are all born racist, not taught. Our distrust of people who look "strange" (as in other than we or unknown) is innate. Education can only do so much. It helps us to understand why we shouldn't be racist but for getting rid of the inherent racism it would be necessary to grow up in a diverse environment.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

I think a key phrase you used is, "if an adult is hoping to raise a non-racist child..."

The word is "an" indicates one adult. While 24% of white children grow up without a father in the family, a whopping 65% of black children grow up without a father. That is almost 3 times the rate for white children. That is pretty close to the same disparity between blacks and whites in education, income, incarceration, and more. Coincidence?

I am not making a moral judgment, just pointing out the reality.

But is that cause or consequence?

I can point to disfunctional aberrations (alcoholism, domestic violence, and others) in communities around the world, and easily demonstrate that these are very often much more prevelant in disadvantaged or racialized communities. But does that mean that they were disadvantaged or racialized because they were alcoholics and or violent, or are those things the consequence of the fact that they have been (for a long time) disadvantaged and racialized?

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

I'm not sure we can overcome racism. We are all born racist, not taught. Our distrust of people who look "strange" (as in other than we or unknown) is innate. Education can only do so much. It helps us to understand why we shouldn't be racist but for getting rid of the inherent racism it would be necessary to grow up in a diverse environment.

Racism is a modern social construct. We're not born racist. White kids are not born believing that people with darker skin are inferior and dangerous (or whatever ethnic stereotype or caricature you can think of). They have to be taught that.

 

[Revoltingest]

I voted <no>, we cannot beat it.
But improvement can be had.
(I'm one of those incrementalists.)

But in the news....
Texas Lt. Gov. Patrick: The real way to address racism is for Americans to "accept Jesus Christ"
I'm not willing to go that far in purgin my racism.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

I voted <no>, we cannot beat it.
But improvement can be had.
(I'm one of those incrementalists.)

But in the news....
Texas Lt. Gov. Patrick: The real way to address racism is for Americans to "accept Jesus Christ"
I'm not willing to go that far in purgin my racism.

OMG, where are you taking me now?

"You cannot love your fellow man if you don't love God," Patrick said. "And we have a country where we've been working really hard, particularly on the left, to kick God out."

That's a quote from your link. Would this be the very same God who said -- about the Canaanites whose lands seemed to be coveted (isn't that a sin) by His people -- Who said:

Only in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not leave alive anything that breathes. But you shall utterly destroy them, the Hittite and the Amorite, the Canaanite and the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, as the Lord your God has commanded you, so that they may not teach you to do according to all their detestable things which they have done for their gods, so that you would sin against the Lord your God (Deut. 20.16-18).

Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys (1 Sam 15:2-3).

That God?

Isn't that how we got Residential schools for natives in Canada, slaves all around the world, brazen theft of indigenous lands, genocide, and all the other good stuff about us?

 

[Revoltingest]

OMG, where are you taking me now?

"You cannot love your fellow man if you don't love God," Patrick said. "And we have a country where we've been working really hard, particularly on the left, to kick God out."

That's a quote from your link. Would this be the very same God who said -- about the Canaanites whose lands seemed to be coveted (isn't that a sin) by His people -- Who said:

Only in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not leave alive anything that breathes. But you shall utterly destroy them, the Hittite and the Amorite, the Canaanite and the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, as the Lord your God has commanded you, so that they may not teach you to do according to all their detestable things which they have done for their gods, so that you would sin against the Lord your God (Deut. 20.16-18).

Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys (1 Sam 15:2-3).

That God?

Isn't that how we got Residential schools for natives in Canada, slaves all around the world, brazen theft of indigenous lands, genocide, and all the other good stuff about us?

Don't ask me....I ain't got no Bible learn'n.

 

[bobhikes]

Here's what I honestly believe: children will naturally grow up to be non-racist adults only when they live in a non-racist society. Otherwise, they will pick up the attitudes of the society in which they .

It can be minimized. You need to promote commonality, manufacture integration and manufacture interaction.

 

[rrobs]

But is that cause or consequence?

I can point to disfunctional aberrations (alcoholism, domestic violence, and others) in communities around the world, and easily demonstrate that these are very often much more prevelant in disadvantaged or racialized communities. But does that mean that they were disadvantaged or racialized because they were alcoholics and or violent, or are those things the consequence of the fact that they have been (for a long time) disadvantaged and racialized?

Good observation. One could effectively argue cause or consequence from either side. But perhaps the question is not even relevant. Could it be a feedback loop? I don't know, just thinking.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Don't ask me....I ain't got no Bible learn'n.

No? I suspect that you would be formidable if you did. And there are dragons to be slain, should you feel a little heroism coming over you...

 

[Revoltingest]

No? I suspect that you would be formidable if you did. And there are dragons to be slain, should you feel a little heroism coming over you...

Bibles....neither useful nor entertaining to me.

 

[Heyo]

Racism is a modern social construct. We're not born racist. White kids are not born believing that people with darker skin are inferior and dangerous (or whatever ethnic stereotype or caricature you can think of). They have to be taught that.

We are born to use stereotypes. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/199805/where-bias-begins-the-truth-about-stereotypes
This leads us to an unconscious bias that is very hard to overcome.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Here's what I honestly believe: children will naturally grow up to be non-racist adults only when they live in a non-racist society. Otherwise, they will pick up the attitudes of the society in which they are nurtured.

If an adult is hoping to raise a non-racist child, then they are totally responsible for guiding their children's non-racist development. This will include the helping them to achieve:

1. accurate knowledge and pride about their own racial/cultural identity
2. accurate knowledge and appreciation of other racial and cultural groups
3. an understanding of how racism works and how to combat it

But only in that way can it ever be beaten. It is almost impossible for us, as adults, to unlearn our most basic feelings about things.

Nope. I'm pretty certain there will be people prejudiced via one form or another.

'Eliminate' racism on one end, and a new one will take its place.

We are instinctively tribal, and whether or not that will evolve the way that's desired, it falls in the hands of a far future generation to deal with. Assuming there is one down the line.

 

[`mud]

There's a `bible` in this thread already !
Could it and the links get any better !
Like butter on toast, here !