The country isn’t a melting pot in most areas, it’s a mosaic. If you aren’t exposed to people of different backgrounds you won’t understand them. I grew up in a very white area and wasn’t exposed to people of different backgrounds much until high school / working in restaurants. I was raised to never judge someone on their appearance, but still when I would be around people of different backgrounds there was some deep down prejudice. Not saying it was negative... just I viewed them as different. It took me diversifying my inner circle to get passed that.
Not only that look what happened to the persecution of the Jewish people throughout history. It goes beyond race.
I've been reading a good bit about the Native Americans recently, and that may be influencing my thoughts. Most of them hated and were at constant war with each other for no reason other than they were slightly different, and that's because they had always hated them and were at constant war.
We are monkeys optimised to operate in a monolithic family tribe of no more than 15 or 20 trying to operate as a unified tribe of 300,000,000. And the more you stress the monkeys, the more they revert to instinctive protective behaviors.
The evolution of mankind from city states to countries and beyond has dulled those instinctive behaviours to a certain extent. I am not saying they have disappeared though. I agree though, that the combination nature and nurture has played a role for sure. But which amounts that can be contributed to each I don’t know. So it comes down to what can we do going forward.
I try not to use the word racist or derivatives of it. The world is simpler than that. Racist is a very powerful word, but at the same time ineffectual and even counterproductive. I prefer to look at the world as a power struggle of sorts. That's what I see as the answer to this question along with a consuming hate. I'm sure there is a sociological term (tribal?) for this, but when there are people in power, those people will do whatever it takes to keep that power. A lot of what we term "systemic" is just the result of white people creating and, more importantly, populating systems of law and order and governorship. As an aside, the other day someone posted their experience from Match. They said that white men are favored on it. Duh! They are in power and women are attracted to power. Even bigtime woke women of color end up marrying white men. It's all about power. As far as the everyday racism we see, most of those people are full of hate that extends to EVERYONE. Even themselves. Even their own. Reformed racists will tell you that. It's tough, but you will be so much better off if you don't hate them back. You'll be like them if you hate them back. This is why I think the term racist is almost unnecessary. It is a mistake to say something like systemic racism and expect to change the hearts of people who don't see anything wrong with favoring their own. Those people don't necessarily hate people unlike them. Right or wrong, they just prefer their own. Once you look past racism you begin to see solutions more clearly. You realize that the people in power will treat you differently, but that's no reason to hate them as you would do the same in their position. You'll be able realize that you are not powerless, but you will have to work on your own to assume the positions that will empower you and yours further. And you'll see that "racist" peoole are literally powered by hate and by hating them back you would be no better than them. It's all love, either way.
Is this a joke? OP is a known racist. Why don’t u tell us why u are the way u are? stop all these stupid games
It is the doing of the main stream media. When you have MSM are focusing only on the negative news or side of certain group of people, you will have racism in your society built up and people will accept MSM propaganda agenda as 'truth'. Trump followers are more susceptible to media, that's why they the most racist ones. The more you are influenced by US media, the bigger racist you are.
It appears you are trying to figure something out - and if so, I commend you for that because questioning what you think is the beginning of a journey of self awareness. A lot of people here, including myself, see you as racist based on your posting pattern. That's not meant to offend you, but as an honest truth. You can be offended by that, and see it as people being mean to you or personally attacking you. But maybe instead you can try to figure out why you are seen as racist instead of getting defensive.
Racism is insidious. And isn't always in the stark terms that people like to put it in. What makes someone racist? Much of racism is very subtle and the so called racist may not even realize they are being racist. Is it racist when you see gofundme pages for white people get more donations than a black person? Is it racist when someone in the office feels that they deserve to be paid more than a minority? Is it racist when someone assumes a mexican guy at the door is there for a delivery? Is it racist when someone doesn't feel someone is a cultural fit because their interests are not aligned with their experiences? Is it racist to feel that a black person moving in next door might lower your property value? Most people have biases about people, and often entitlement about themselves.
I think these are genetically hard wired things built into mammals about how to behave. They don't change without more natural selection than we've been subject to. You can fight really hard against the urge to cough when something tickles the back of your throat in a crowded theater, but biology pushes really hard to do so and every once in a while someone coughs in the middle of the show.
Not entirely on topic, but read something that stuck with me since. "Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect..."
I agree with this and think Racism is thrown around way to much these days and its more of bigotry and otherism I don't think many people actually think a race is inferior to them they just need somebody to project their anger and insecurities on. I don't think racism is not a thing i just think the term is used to broadly now.
Just to add, as I should have earlier: Then the Spanish came, and did the same thing in the West that had been happening for centuries. And the French and English did the same in the East. Then the Mexicans (after they kicked out the Spanish) kept it up. Then the "Americans" kicked out the Mexicans and moved West and did the same things all over again.
We tend to lump people we observe or interact with into different buckets that we ascribe various attributes to, like "lazy", "entitled", "stupid", "disciplined", "smart", "dangerous", etc. Our subconscious brains make use of various heuristics to quickly categorize people in this manner, race being a very common one. I guess that's one reason. Another is just lack of empathy.
