I was actually quite surprised with the results. Yes, I expected the sarcasm, but I guess I figured at least somebody would offer the hope that, no, not everyone holds a degree of fear or dislike for another human being based on race. But out of the 16 comments, not one person could even suggest that not everyone is racist.
The most hopeful anyone got was the suggestion that "for the everyday normal person, it may just come from being unfamiliar with a particular race."
So, it's our unfamiliarity with a person's race that makes us fear, resent, or judge people? What is it about skin color that drives human beings to the conclusion that a person is different enough to label? Why in the world would the color of someone's skin trigger a reluctancy to accept a person?
11 comments:
Someone on my status said that "not everyone is racist but everyone you and I know..." so pretty much the same thing!
As I read more and more of these it looks like we all got the same results- a lot of humorous replies, and a couple of "yeses" but the overall consensus seems to be that most people realize that racism exists in them, and everyone they know
People also responded with a lot of jokes, but I did not have a single person who thought that everyone isn't a little bit racist.
I actually had a novel written on my page with a friend that took the side that not everyone is a racist. He said that just because we have cultural misunderstandings doesn't mean we all think our race is superior to another. He left the comment that calling everyone a racist could actually do more harm then we think.
I didn't have anyone say that not all people are racist either. I would have to agree that I think that its almost completely impossible to not be a little bit racist in someway.
I found the exact same findings. I think the jokes are interesting because it just reflects society so well... we joke about the things we don't know how to handle. We are all so scared of stepping on toes that we joke.
Where is all of this uneasiness coming from? This is the question that I keep coming back to. I want to find the person in this world who has never consumed a lick of media and ask him/her this question. It would be interesting to see what they say.
I agree that everyone is a little racist...but one of the people that I asked said that it isn't just against race. He served his mission in Guatemala and he said the people there would go off of stereotypes they see on TV about Americans. The people there would always tell him that Americans don't know about poor countries, because we all live in a rich atmosphere. Everyone can read into stereotypes when they haven't had experiences or contact with that particular group of people.
Maybe one reason we like to stereotype is because of this unfamiliarity with other races that you mentioned. We seek to understand that which we are unfamiliar with. But in our attempt to understand, we form stereotypes and some are negative.
i think our word association exercise in class shows the argument of unfamiliarity with a race, may not be as valid as one may think. not to say that we are racist against mexicans because we wrote down a food item, but that it was almost unanimous that we were familiar with a culture and still put some type of stereotype down.
I think that a lot of people are hesitant to change their perception of others at times because that means that they have to change something about themselves as well. It's very easy to look at someone else and tell them to stop being racist, but how often do we challenge those perceptions that we carry?
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