Discussions
Are people inherently racist?
Posted by DealingBlog • 6/13/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: diversity, multiculturalism, transendence, understanding
During my college years at Cal Berkeley, I participated in a Diversity roundtable. The project involved recruiting students from diverse backgrounds and putting them together to have open and candid talks about "power, privilege, and identity." One of my fraternity brothers was recruited so he got me involved as well.
Everything was going well until one person claimed that ALL PEOPLE are inherently RACIST. I am not going to spoil the surprise as to how the roundtable worked with that claim. However, I pose the question to you:
Are people inherently racist?
Or is it a misuse of the term racist? Maybe people are just more comfortable with others who share their world view, their culture, etc and race is one "shorthand" for this?
User Comments
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sorry, i didn't read the title is enough
NO people are not....!-
Great philosophy. Works well with contracts too lol!
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No. Next provocative but silly question, please.-
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Thanks for the well-explained answer. I also appreciate the dismissive approach
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@DealingBlog
You're welcome. Anytime.
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No they are not, and we already have had this lengthy discussion on here (do a search).-
Oh did we? How did it go? How recent was it? Maybe time to revisit the issue?
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Yes. It's a survivalist trait. We all (from ants to elephants) fluff our feathers or widen our furs when we first notice another enter our space. We may quickly lower our alert when we see no threat is involved. Thankfully, as our minds and social understandings grow, such instincts are less triggered. And we adjust. And accept diversity as just another aspect of life. And appreciate. And embrace. Hopefully.-
Does political correctness help or hinder this acceptance of diversity?
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@DealingBlog - It does both. It helps in quietening automatic derogatory terms we might have picked up in a more racist society/environment. It hinders in quelling serious discussions about race, its impact on us and others.
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I think this reduces to a more fundamental question, one theologians and philosophers have been been debating for milennia: Are people inherently good or evil? And if so, what effect does culture, environment, have on these innate tendencies? St. Augustine vs. Rousseau.-
One of the paradoxes of recent history is that political ideologies that produce pain and suffering like COMMUNISM posit that people are born GOOD. While those ideologies like CAPITALISM which lifts people out of poverty (arguably but see post Deng Xiaoping China) posit that people are born BAD (those selfish bastard! lol)
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Yea, this is the bc I remember,and no u are not born raceist! It is not a gene. U do not inherit hate,u learn to hate. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. -
No.
It is learned. I moved to a culturally mixed neighbourhood when my kids were small. The elementary school across the street from me was like a little United Nations, as was my street. Children of diverse ethnicities played together without race entering into their choices for playmates.
By the time they got to the high school three blocks down the road, kids had begun to divide up along race lines...we had gangs. It was sad to see so many children corrupted by hate. When they were little and nobody told them differently, they all played together well.
It is not inborn, it is learned.-
I agree whole heartedly. Racism is NOT inherent ; it is learned. I believe racism and hatred are the most vile and damaging legacies that parents can ever bestow upon their children.
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No, but if people don't recognize there exists a common objective truth, then there are bound to be frictions, including bloody. Note: I am thinking here of racism in a broader sense. -
Well, human feelings cannot always be subject to ethics and morality, but I abhor racism. That said, how many times have you told a racist joke, just out of the pure mischief of it? It's important to be sensitive to the feelings of people of different ethnicticity, but if we're all tip-toeing around each other...so I mean, there should be respect shown for people's differences, without creating a barrier by being to afraid of what you say to other people all the time.-
Now, there is a difference between racial jokes and ethnical jokes. We all have different cultures and its fun to make fun of that sometimes. Like I have a bumper sticker that says "don't make me go all crazy white girl on you" its out of fun not hate
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Yes..
but i think it is part of something larger.
People are inherently biased -
How do u figure that? They are not born that way. It is something u learn.
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of course you are, you are born with the belief that you are the centre of the universe
it took thousands of years for people to figure out that we weren't -
@siralmo do you think there's an evolutionary basis to "feeling like the center of the universe"? Maybe self-preservation? For example, some evolutionary behaviorists argue that certain common human fears are due to evolutionary adaptations by our species as a whole.
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definitely, (though this is my opinion) from the moment we are born we can only really see through our eyes, i believe that makes us think to some degree that we are at the centre of every thing.
its only recently (last couple of thousand years) that we as humans have developed the concepts of position, purpose and meaning
but you are taught these concepts... when we are born we still perceive the world through our eyes and generally don't trust (or follow blindly) without seeing or experiencing ourselves.
i would like to go further with this but it could get quite lengthy as i delve into my perception of perception and it effects on behaviour and the surrounding world. not to mention indirect causes and influences on behaviours and thoughts -
That still doesn't make u born raceist. You can be predispositioned,with a "bad temper" but you aren't predisposed to hate. Just like I don't agree with being born thinking you are the center of the universe.
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Yea
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I believe when a person's circle of comfort is threatened, the convenient outstanding human visual, cultural differences does come into playing the scapegoat trait often. -
People are people. At the end of the day we're just instinct driven animals. Not every decision we make is rational. To the human brain something that is different is scary and weird. That's something that won't ever go away. It's that survival instinct that gave us racism and religion.-
Do you agree with the concept of TRANSACTIONAL COSTS?
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If you explained it to me, I just might.
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I hope I'm not gonna be sorry for asking this......but....The hell is transactional cost
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The People. We. Racist? Unfortunately. Inherit? Subjectively.
Saddening Is, We Changed The Roles Of The Colours, To Bad.
I Know Now, Why Does A Poet Feels Hunger When His Stomach Is Full, And The Painting Is Ever Unfinished! ...Worst. -
Here is the link from april:
www.blogcatalog.com/discuss/entry/are-you-racist -
Like the song lyrics state. "You've got to be taught before it's too late, before you are six or seven or eight. You've got to be taught to hate."
E -RACE - ISM -
No. People do inherently discriminate and resort to in group/out group but that tendency is not neccesarilly carried out by. Racism is mostly the product of warfare, as there are few excluding and hateful experiences greater then an open bloodthirsty feud.-
Sorry baby doll,but I disagree. Its nature vs nurture. Nurture wins in my book. There have been a few doc. Done on it. There are cases where children have been abandoned,and dogs have actually cared for the child. They called the kid a farrel child. She learned how to behave via the pack of dogs. She never learned to talk,but she still growls and barks at dogs when she walks by. She was 19 yrs old they assumed....
That is why I say you have to learn to hate -
"feral"
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If we deal with people of different races and social backgrounds on a regular basis, it becomes difficult to be a racist. We see everybody is no different then yourself, albeit with cultural differences. Racists are just idiots. Not everybody is an idiot. Racism is basically ignorance, lack of exposure to diversity, and prejudice instilled by bad parenting. -
people have said yes and many have said no. some have questioned the relativity of the term 'racism,' but i don't recall anyone challenging the notion of 'inherent.' if racism is socially constructed in the same way that judith butler conceives of sex, then does society constitute the environment that gives meaning to being inherent? my answer is yes. if we can move away from or change our normal way of creating meaning, then the answer is no, people are not inherently racist. but since we can't, then the answer has to be yes.-
i did
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sorry, i usually don't read what you write because it's usually stupid. no offense.
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no offence??
like that makes it any better, since when do you just ignore posts and then make grand statements like that
you tool, I hope I never see you again you degrading ignorant bastard -
Uh huh
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@ arch
Yea! -
Your intelligence overwhelms me Holly.
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I'm pretty sure I was born with a bias against stupidity.
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@ rain. Yea!!!!
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@ arch
Yea!!!! -
@archiegottlieb you have to be the biggest prat i have ever interacted with
not only have you insulted me various times, you have managed to do so in a manner that seems to be ego driven. you are the worst kind of person. worse than a troll.
people like you should be culled, because surely your attitude alone will infect us with an overblown sense of self worth. It will cause us all to drown in insecurities as people like you over time realise that you are not actually as great as you think you are.
you don't know me, and you discriminate based on a few lines on a screen you are hardly worth the light of day, and I think its worth pointing out only because you called me out on this. -
@almo
U go boyyyyyy! -
@---almo, surely you must think that people like you with marked insecurities deserve some of the self worth of which you claim i'm in excess. the truth is, you, and people like you, are in desperate need of it. if you feel inferior to me or in any way degraded by me, then i simply can't help you. you are clearly a person of weak constitution, and tries all to hard to overcome that by prefixing your online name with 'sir,' a title that hardly suits you, a painful bore possessed of an intellectual capacity that measures up to that of a nearly extinct costa rican bug.
by your heated response, you must think yourself an exception from the rest. but the fact is (and "the fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows," so get to work!), i've treated nearly everyone on this forum not unlike the way i've treated you. i haven't provoked you in any way different from others, in fact, i never intend to provoke because that would imply i have the capacity to care what other people think of me and of my opinions; both scarcely need the confirmation of others to exist; they are as they are.
my initial response to you had been the friendliest perhaps in the history of my commentary here. for that, you ought to consider yourself a rare recipient of the grace i'm capable of showing. how you've managed to distort it in that fatty matter of insecurities is beyond the realm of my immediate interest.
clearly i have no vested interest in improving your insignificant life and troubled state with apologies or acts towards reparations. the problem, as i see it, is you. i may never be as a great as you reckon i think i will be (and i thank you sincerely for that), but at least, you've confirmed, as i myself had long known upon first interacting with you - however regretfully and sordidly that exchange may have devolved, that i will always be better than you. i may not be the first nor the greatest, but i know, as you know, i will not be the last nor the worst. -
You bumped this thread just for that?
Anyway ... you could have put it in a better way than "sorry, i usually don't read what you write because it's usually stupid. no offense" and avoided going off-topic. -
what can i say, i felt bad for the guy. it has been awhile since i last visited this fester of idiocy, and i thought it might do well my previous image as a hateful, dismissive pedant to respond to someone whom i've earlier neglected. i'd hate to be the guy who degrades everyone...
at the time i could have just apologized, but being the dismissive and neglectful personality that i was, i didn't realize that adding 'no offense' would produce upon someone such a negative impression.
and going-off topic is the gem of this place.
i won't remind you of your contribution to the continued "bumping" of this thread with your response. -
archiegottlieb just admit that you need this, you come in here trying to make it seem like i have a complex, when yuo have resurected a thread to tell me i have a complex
what i would assume is actually going on is that you are the one that has the complex and by making it seem like i have a copmlex or that i write stupid comments which you have the "right" to ignore becasue you are some self proclaimed genius.
i would say to you, mate, that you take that pompus ego of yours, come down off that imaginary high horse of yours and go see a psych, we all know you sure as hell need it.
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Sure. It's a survival skill that all animals have. But humans also have the ability to suppress the urge to reject whomever is different, and the world would be a much better place if we all did the extra work. -
I think the art of the insult is a lost art. We need creative insults here at BC. An insult can be a work of artistry! Siralmo, your insult…”you degrading ignorant bastard.” combined with Archiegottlieb “it's usually stupid. no offense” creates a beautiful insult:
“YOU IGNORANT USUALLY STUPID DEGRADING NO OFFENSE BASTARD.” -
@davedol now they have both been insulted by me and they don't even know it,haha.......now that's what I call art. Abstract haha........
Almo I wasn't insulting u I was just showing davdol something -
Hollythehousewife, combine hatingtherain's insult with the other guys. What do we got?
"YOU IGNORANT YOUR INTELLIGENCE USUALLY OVERWHELMS YOUR STUPID DEGRADING NO OFFENSE BASTARD BIAS AGAINST STUPIDITY!"
Hey, its starting to make sense! -
@ dave it is ........tehehehaha
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No. Racism as we know it--the idea that people are inherently inferior or superior due to skin color and other physical characteristics--was developed only a few centuries ago, essentially to defend slavery and colonialism.-
wp - see below
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People aren't inherently racist, and society doesn't make them racist. They become racists, they turn themselves into racists, through their own actions. And the person who hates Jews or Asians or black-skinned people today, may wind up marrying one tomorrow.
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People will always be racist if they don't learn to step out of the box. it doesn't matter what your color is...people respond to the same thing. In my case :beautiful music -
As a caregiver I observed that toddlers in a playroom program will play with one another regardless of race. In other words, they were "color blind". Racism isn't instinctual or inherent; it must be learned. That's why I said what I did above: "I believe racism and hatred are the most vile and damaging legacies that parents can ever bestow upon their children."
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