Racism and discrimination fall under the same category. What is racism more than discriminating against another person?
Where does racism come from?
It is such an enormous problem in the world, and it has been discussed so many times, but it still exists. Perhaps now more than ever. In reality, racism is nothing more than conflict.
When people live in groups, and they do not agree with each other, humans tend to identify themselves with people similar to them. People divide into certain groups. “Us” and “them” are terms often used when sides are chosen, and then everyone from the one group is identified as the same.
Interestingly enough, males, in particular, can be very hostile to each other. People judge quickly and when issues between groups escalate, and they start standing up against each other, it is very often the males who present a violent threat. This is commonly known as the male-warrior hypothesis.
What is the male-warrior hypothesis?
Throughout the history of human civilization, wars have a common feature of being practiced primarily by males. This group aggression by males is a persistent trait of human behavior, seen across different continents among civilizations that have developed independently of each other. Evidence suggests that compared to females, male behavior and psychology is more inclined to aggression. Men are relatively more aggressive in inter-group games and display stronger ingroup loyalty in the presence of an inter-group threat.
How can we eliminate racial discrimination?
It is a fact that we learn behavior from our parents and peers. Just because they believed in something doesn’t necessarily make it right.
Example 1:
You have a new friend. Your parents don’t like him/her for whatever reason, but it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t, should it?
We tend to believe what our parents teach us, and they teach us what their parents taught them. It becomes somewhat of a repeated belief system.
We need to investigate where our beliefs come from. Does it come from our own experiences, or are we bias because our families are?
Once you make up your own mind about what you believe it is then that equality starts to make sense.
Example 2:
You are a young child and a dog attacks you. In time the wounds heal, but you have that constant fear and believe that all dogs bite. This is not necessarily true, is it?
Just because you were bitten by one dog, doesn’t make all dogs bad.
You might have had a personal experience with someone from a different race. Just because one person did something nasty to you doesn’t make all people from the same race the same.
This is a very sad thought. This is exactly what we as humans do. We don’t want to experience pain and hurt, and therefore we generalize. If one person hurts you, we go into a type of defensive mode and we won’t allow ourselves to get hurt again no matter what the cost.
Remember example 1? Not all dogs bite!!!
To eliminate racial discrimination, we need to look at ourselves and at the other person. Once we get it into our heads that we are all equal and similar, we can start to improve our relationships.
Each person should be seen as an individual and validated for who they are. Just because our parents believed in something doesn’t make it right. Skin color has in fact NOTHING to do with racism.
If you think about this, just because the person speaks a different language, have a different skin color, and have different cultural beliefs, doesn’t make him/her less of a person. They might look different but we all do don't we?
Just the same if someone doesn’t live in a grand house and drives a nice expensive car make them less of a person or anything different from you.
We need to start by teaching our own children differently.
If you don’t make them aware of something, they cannot believe in it, right? It is a scientific fact that children do not really see color, they see a person and they only start to see color if they are made aware of it.
This however doesn’t mean that we need to go through life as color-blind. If you put a Chinese person and an African American person next to each other, there is a very clear difference. Each to their own!
We need to see each person as an individual and understand their culture and just because they have different skin color doesn’t make the one less of a person than the other.
Racial discrimination can only be eliminated if everyone starts thinking differently. We need to take a stand together and get of racial jokes, get to know our neighbors, and make sure everyone has equal rights.
It doesn’t make sense to live in the past. We cannot change it. The only thing that we can do is to look forward and do things better from now on.
It starts with you and me!
