It Takes a Village to Raise a Racist

[Kathryn41 3,205]

There is a lot of truth in this article - children pick up the 'environment' around them and because they are children have not yet learned to question . . . they just accept that this is the way things are. This is why providing people with education and experiences that diversify that environment help to break up the communities that foster 'selectism' of whatever quality or trait it is you are selecting.

I was born in Quebec to an English speaking protestant family. I went to English speaking protestant schools. Quebec is a 'bi-lingual province' in that many Quebecers are French Speaking Catholics. My parents are not racist - they have never judged anyone on their race, culture, religion, or any other similar trait. Yet, I was exposed in my 'community' - the school - to children who accepted that being French speaking Catholic was wrong and that they were 'bad' people. I grew up unconsciously absorbing that environment - never questioning the right or wrong of that belief. The really crazy part is that some of my best friends in our neighbourhood were French speaking Catholic kids - but I never made the association that these friends of mine belonged to that nebulous 'them'.

It wasn't until I moved away from that environment when I was 12 that I suddenly - and with guilty horror - realized how indoctrinated I had been to discriminate against French speaking Catholics merely because they were not English speaking Protestants. I had never had a contrast before in which to place my 'imprinted' belief into context. Fortunately, the belief dissipated quickly when I realized I was generalizing some nebulous 'them' instead of seeing every one as an individual like I did my French Speaking Catholic friends.

I was lucky. I had the opportunity to see my beliefs and recognize them for what they were -and let them go. How many people, however, never get that opportunity? They grow up in that community, never questioning because it was so much a part of their environment as the home in which they lived. It is often not a conscious choice and when you bring things like racism down to the individual level you often find it disappears. It is because we can look at a group and generalize them - we objectify them rather than view than as individuals - that we run into community beliefs that do create racist and discriminatory viewpoints.

In spite of its size, the US is still very much insulated against a true understanding of diversity. This is very apparent in the typical US reaction to immigrants. In many places those 'communities' continue to live, unexposed to the opportunities that would allow the people to question what they have learned through living in that environment. Unfortunately, people then become set in their ways and are not able to learn or move beyond these belief systems. I have long felt that one of the best things that could happen to every American student is that they have to spend a year or two away from home living and going to school in a foreign country so that they can experience diversity and recognize that different isn't better or worse, just different - that they could have the opportunity I did to realize how mistaken my viewpoint was once I found myself in a place where I had to question what I had 'learned' from my community environment.

Edited February 9, 2010 by Kathryn41

[Danno 1,228]

I just wish these folks would pick one reason why people dislike other groups and stick with it... I thought it was the "cycle of hate" within families that we just need to fix?

Now we find out from looking at stories (from look al the way back to the mid-1900) that no, it's actually "the community" not the family which inspires all this "hate".

Just wondering.... where are all these communities which "teaches kids to hate"?

I would like VJers to tell me how your community is training up little Klansman?

[Peikko 1,575]

I just wish these folks would pick one reason why people dislike other groups and stick with it... I thought it was the "cycle of hate" within families that we just need to fix?

Now we find out from looking at stories (from look al the way back to the mid-1900) that no, it's actually "the community" not the family which inspires all this "hate".

Just wondering.... where are all these communities which "teaches kids to hate"?

I would like VJers to tell me how your community is training up little Klansman?

Humans are complex creatures. It is becoming more and more apparant as more and more work is done on the influences that shape character and opinion that there is no one size fits all answer, that these things are in fact a product of all the experiences that one encounters. Why one experience proves to be more lasting than another, why it shapes and influences more than another is something we don't have ready answers to, so expect more studies that shed more light, but do not give the answer.

[Danno 1,228]

Humans are complex creatures. It is becoming more and more apparant as more and more work is done on the influences that shape character and opinion that there is no one size fits all answer, that these things are in fact a product of all the experiences that one encounters. Why one experience proves to be more lasting than another, why it shapes and influences more than another is something we don't have ready answers to, so expect more studies that shed more light, but do not give the answer.

Sounds more reasonable than this type of stuff.

So why the need of some Egg heads to always come out like they have "cracked the Code"?

This was so lame it had to recycle parts of history beyond most peoples memory to build its case.

I'd still like to here real life stories from VJers how their community is turning out JR Klansmen, surely if this piece has any merit at all the testimonies should be flooding in.