It Takes a Village to Raise a Racist

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Researches have found that kids don't necessarily get their prejudice from their parents -- it is the community that fosters tolerance or prejudice.

SPLC Intelligence Report / By Sonia Scherr

Shortly after white supremacist James von Brunn's fatal shooting attack this spring at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., his 32-year-old son issued a statement to ABC News in which he denounced his father's ideology and described the devastating impact it had had on his family.

"My father's beliefs have been a constant source of verbal and mental abuse my family has had to suffer with for many years," he said. "His views consumed him, and in doing so, not only destroyed his life, but destroyed our family and ruined our lives as well."

Erik von Brunn's repudiation of his father's bigotry runs counter to the conventional wisdom that virulent racists will produce children like themselves. Indeed, the movement has its share of parent-child notables, including neo-Nazi leaders Tom and John Metzger, white supremacists Don and Derek Black, and Klan/skinhead organizers Ron and Steven Edwards. But the younger von Brunn is hardly alone in rejecting a parent's beliefs — and experts say that's no surprise.

"Overall, there's not a lot of evidence that, at least in the long term, kids get their prejudice from their parents," said Charles Stangor, who runs the Laboratory for the Study of Social Stereotyping and Prejudice at the

University of Maryland. "I would call it more of a community effect than a parental effect. The community fosters tolerance or prejudice." That community includes peers and other adults, such as teachers, coaches and clergy, said Frances Aboud, a psychology professor at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, who studies the development of racial prejudice in children. "There are so many other influences in a child's life [besides parents], particularly once they start kindergarten."

Children of racial extremists may have to contend with other effects of their parents' bigotry, Aboud said. "I think [they] probably become sensitive to that type of adult; other kids might not be aware that there's that kind of extreme emotional hate toward people," she said. "[Children of racial extremists] might have lived with more fear. They might have felt vulnerable themselves to that kind of hate: What if I cross my parents in some way — am I going to get that hate directed at me?"

To take a closer look at the experience of growing up in a climate of hate, the Intelligence Report spoke with three people whose fathers were deeply involved in racial extremism: the co-founder of a civil rights group who drove her father to Klan meetings when she was a teenager in Arkansas in the 1960s; a former nurse whose father was among the most powerful Klan leaders during the civil rights movement; and a teenager who had to cast aside his entire way of thinking about the world after renouncing his white nationalist father.

Their stories reveal how they developed their own views about race and sense of identity. They also show how bigotry's ill effects often extend beyond its intended targets.

As the daughter of the Arkansas Klansman said: "We are all victims of this type of hate."

Taking on the Klan

One summer night in 1965, 12-year-old Carolyn Wagner watched as Klansmen bound a young black man to a tree in her father's field, accused him of violating the "sundown" rules in nearby Booneville, Ark., that forbade blacks from staying in town after dark, and lashed him a few times with a bullwhip as he cried out in pain and fear.

It was no different from beatings at other Klan gatherings her father had attended, but what happened next remains vivid in her memory: the Klansmen decided to tie the man to the railroad tracks below the pasture. When they were done, they ambled back to the field to discuss crops and politics. Wagner, a reluctant witness to her father's Klan meetings, couldn't stand it anymore. She stole down to the tracks, used a knife she kept in her boot to slash the rope that bound the man, and told him he could follow the tracks to Fort Smith, the nearest large town.

"That was a turning point," recalled Wagner, now 56 and living in Tulsa, Okla. "I felt like I had made a difference when I was able to cut that man free. I realized I can make a choice to be a passive observer or I can become involved to diminish the harm that they're doing. And that's what I did from that night on, and that's what I'm still doing."

After years working for civil rights and children's organizations, Wagner co-founded Families United Against Hate, a nonprofit group that helps people affected by bias incidents. Her experience growing up with a father in the Klan made her determined and fearless in her fight against hate. "That image of my dad and those men, and even the smells, are still with me, and they'll always be with me. And it was very important that my children never know the world I knew when I was growing up."

It was a world where Wagner's father, Edward Greenwood, and his acquaintances gathered at least once a month at each other's farms for Klan meetings, often bringing their children and grandkids. Because her father, then in his late 50s, couldn't see well enough to drive at night, Wagner ferried him to meetings in a 1951 Chevy pickup. (Back then in rural Arkansas, it wasn't unusual for children as young as 12 to drive on country roads.) The men — including lawyers, judges, cops and pastors — would begin their gatherings with a prayer and eschew alcohol. "They felt like they were doing God's work," Wagner said.

more...

[Niels Bohr 72]

I use to hate all white people because they insulted me, and vandalized my home multiple times. I used that hate to be better than them. Turned it around and shove it in their faces as a positive reinforcement. Channeling the hate to something good (like getting good grades in school to beat every white person in school) is an example.

[Danno 1,228]

I use to hate all white people because they insulted me, and vandalized my home multiple times. I used that hate to be better than them. Turned it around and shove it in their faces as a positive reinforcement. Channeling the hate to something good (like getting good grades in school to beat every white person in school) is an example.

Wow Niels thats a lot of HATE you have had to deal with since you arived, I recall your story of how bad the Black kids treated you... too and how you had to "prove" yourself better than them too".

Think about it, you came to this country and the largest group (whites) and the next largest group (Black) treat you like #######.

Dayum this country Sucks.... or maybe it's you?

[spookyturtle 9,466]

Wow Niels thats a lot of HATE you have had to deal with since you arived, I recall your story of how bad the Black kids treated you... too and how you had to "prove" yourself better than them too".

Think about it, you came to this country and the largest group (whites) and the next largest group (Black) treat you like #######.

Dayum this country Sucks.... or maybe it's you?

[Fandango 1,440]

I use to hate all white people because they insulted me, and vandalized my home multiple times. I used that hate to be better than them. Turned it around and shove it in their faces as a positive reinforcement. Channeling the hate to something good (like getting good grades in school to beat every white person in school) is an example.

umm.

[Brad and Vika 129]

I use to hate all white people because they insulted me, and vandalized my home multiple times. I used that hate to be better than them. Turned it around and shove it in their faces as a positive reinforcement. Channeling the hate to something good (like getting good grades in school to beat every white person in school) is an example.

[justashooter 430]

I use to hate all white people because they insulted me, and vandalized my home multiple times. I used that hate to be better than them. Turned it around and shove it in their faces as a positive reinforcement. Channeling the hate to something good (like getting good grades in school to beat every white person in school) is an example of what a complete moron would do with such a situation. rather than individuating, the said moron identifies with his opressors, and becomes one of them. bound up in his own racism, he repeatedly expresses his anger and frustration at the monster he has become on a bulletin board that is supposed to be culturally sensitive, on which a certain white guy repeatedly bashes him with his own inconsistencies, just for fun...

[Peikko 1,575]

Individualating?

I don't think psyche 101 class is doing you any good.

[chri'stina 190]

This article is true for my parents, especially my father. He seemed to grow up without being racist even though his parents were while he was a kid and teen (in the 60's/early 70's, Philadelphia PA). He and his sis had friends their parents didn't approve of because of the color of their skin. My dad and aunt thought that was weird and rebelled. I have mentioned this before on here. Even my grandparents were subject to discrimination when they married. My grandmother's parents refused to attend the wedding because she(Scottish, English) was marrying an Italian, yet my grandparents were still prejudice or racist after they experienced it at that time.

Thankfully by the end of the 1970's, my grandparents had gone through a transformation that led them to feel that being racist was wrong and that all humans were created equal.

Edited February 9, 2010 by chri'stina

[chri'stina 190]

I use to hate all white people because they insulted me, and vandalized my home multiple times. I used that hate to be better than them. Turned it around and shove it in their faces as a positive reinforcement. Channeling the hate to something good (like getting good grades in school to beat every white person in school) is an example.

I imagine it must have been really bad if you felt that much hate. I guess you are past it now and have a successful career and everything. I just wonder if it's better to not let bitterness take place so strongly, and it's also not good to hate an entire people for what some did. That was probably because you didn't know many who weren't being mean to you? Is that the reason?

[Peikko 1,575]

I imagine it must have been really bad if you felt that much hate. I guess you are past it now and have a successful career and everything. I just wonder if it's better to not let bitterness take place so strongly, and it's also not good to hate an entire people for what some did. That was probably because you didn't know many who weren't being mean to you? Is that the reason?

When you are a kid, it is pretty hard to take your personal experience and put it into any kind of context. Neils clearly said that he used his personal experience of racism to make himself work harder to be more successful to almost 'prove' the racists wrong by simply being better than them as he was growing up. He certainly isn't suggesting that he is not able to contextualise his past.

Edited February 9, 2010 by Madame Cleo

[Fandango 1,440]

When you are a kid, it is pretty hard to take your personal experience and put it into any kind of context. Neils clearly said that he used his personal experience of racism to make himself work harder to be more successful to almost 'prove' the racists wrong by simply being better than them as he was growing up. He certainly isn't suggesting that he is not able to contextualise his past.

Nope, he said 'ALL white people'

[Niels Bohr 72]

Being a kid has its fault. You don't have the large scope of how the world works. You learn more about that as you mature.

Nope, he said 'ALL white people'

[Peikko 1,575]

Nope, he said 'ALL white people'

Erm, you don't have to be a genius to work out that as a kid, his experience of white people was pretty much limited to racists - that was his experience like it or not. The pertinent point however, is that this was the way he saw things as a kid, when he had limited experiences of not only white people but the world in general. A kids world is necessarily a very small one and this is not something that he believes in the wider context of adulthood.

Edited February 9, 2010 by Madame Cleo

[alienlovechild 75]

University of Maryland. "I would call it more of a community effect than a parental effect. The community fosters tolerance or prejudice." That community includes peers and other adults, such as teachers, coaches and clergy, said Frances Aboud, a psychology professor at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, who studies the development of racial prejudice in children. "There are so many other influences in a child's life [besides parents], particularly once they start kindergarten."

So racists had mostly racist teachers and coaches in school and racist preachers in church. Maybe true at one time but I don't a lot of avowed racists working for long in most school systems.