A lot of our education on matters race

[malaise]

takes place at home- much of it is informal. We hear and we see attitudes to others.
This part of the discussion on racism is missing in the media discussions.

[SheltieLover]

1. Absolutely!

Kids are not born disliking or fearing others with a different skin color!

Racism is taught! At home!

[Hugh_Lebowski]

5. By what means do you know that?

Perhaps it just doesn't 'display' until they're more mature, so we don't see really little kids acting racist.

I mean, if someone similarly argued that people cannot be born gay ... evidenced by the fact that we don't see obvious signs of it in 2 year old's ... would you buy that?

Cause it's basically the same argument

[SheltieLover]

6. Observations

[Archae]

7. When I was a kid racism was common among our elders...

And our kids' games reflected it.

We'd pile on each other, did we call it a "dog pile?"
Nope.

Eenie, meanie, meinie, mo, catch a "tiger" by the toe?
Again, nope.

Most of us grew out of the old ways we learned while growing up.
Many of our elders did not.

My Father died an unrepentant hater of anyone not white.
It wasn't the "Join the Klan" type racism, it was the "Keep them out of OUR neighborhoods" type.

[malaise]

8. Great post

[Hugh_Lebowski]

11. Racism is absolutely global, and the entire spectrum of historical text

going back to the very earliest historical texts we're capable of interpreting ... suggest that some form or another of racism ... is endemic to the human population.

The Old Testament is pretty full of it, New Testament shows (in many ways) Jesus was not a fan of people being like this. At minimum, his supposed utterances on the subject represent an understanding of 'hey this is a big problem in the world around me'.

Also ...

India is a super-racist country. Worse than the US, by a lot.

China is a very racist country. Worse than the US, by a lot.

Japan is even full of racists. Probably worse than the US.

That's just to name a few. But it represents about 1/2 the world's population.

How anyone could conclude, in light of these facts, that racism is not engrained genetically from our evolutionary heritage ... and that rather it's simply a perpetuation of 'what we're taught by our elders' ... boggles my f***ing mind, quite frankly. It's NOT the more-logical conclusion given the evidence, put it like that.

I think it's more logical to conclude that, on-balance, most people need to be taught to NOT be racist, not the other way around. And with a lot of them ... you're simply not going to be able to, because it's engrained in the human genome.

MHO, fwiw.

[Hoyt]

2. +1. Racism is learned from parents most often. Interacting with others,

particularly at school, probably saves a lot of kids from a lifetime of hatred.

Even if the Klan-loving governors are successful with their CRT crud, kids interacting with each other is critical to rejecting that junk.

[malaise]

3. Great post

This why why racists love segregation - once you mingle with others you realize we are all just human beings swimming among the scumbags.

[Hoyt]

4. Love it, "Swimming among the scumbags." That's exactly what it feels like.

[Wounded Bear]

9. It's why they like home schooling, too...nt

[malaise]

10. Excellent point