Human Nature. [View all]

[Kind of Blue]

I generally look at DU homepage and move on to the AA group. But this title caught my eye: Again... "In Front Of His Staff" - MLK, Bernie Sanders, And Democratic Socialism... http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251867869

Cursoring down the replies, I saw this "Well all evidence points to the fact that humans are fundamentally built for racism...but how it manisfests is a learned phenomenon due to social factors." Fundamentally built, WOW!

There are 3 things that bother me. One: asking the poster for evidence and getting none for such a bold statement. Two: the poster chose to answer with a PM, still with no evidence. I haven't done much PMing but PMing an answer seems unusual to me. It feels like the poster throws stuff out there publicly but wants to privately block my response, so I choose to share it here. And with a moderator's permission, I will invite poster here.

The third thing that bothers me is these carless assumptions are what leads directly to policy http://ann.sagepub.com/content/661/1/212.abstract https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2015/09/28/born-that-way-scientific-racism-is-creeping-back-into-our-thinking-heres-what-to-watch-out-for/

PM is here http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=inbox&view=2083189 I counter the poster's argument from this line: "I know you will still disagree with me."

Yes and wholeheartedly so. First of all, I’m still waiting for even one iota of biological evidence for racism. Since there's none forthcoming, then I’ll explain to you where your confusion lies. You are conflating the fight or flight response that's a normal reaction in all animals with learned racism. The mechanism for FoF is initiated in our amygdala that triggers a series of responses from heart rate to salivation to tunnel vision to shaking and a lot more. But the organ is an inherent mechanism working to ward off danger and protect ourselves, so we can either run or fight for our lives.

How we categorize people is a social phenomenon shaped by stereotypes. How we react, flight or fight, is influenced by stereotyping. Repeat categorization of people - black, white, Latino, Asian and characteristics associated with each group - is a social phenomenon. Once upon a time, our survival depended upon how quickly we could identify a threat but we're not born automatically believing in these construct. The amygdala is not programmed for racism but is activated when any negative stimuli is in the environment and exposure to negative stimuli is constant learned behavior in our society.

There is so much science on this that I have to stop myself from being surprised that these fallacious and dangerous beliefs are not readily refuted. It seems it's not only republicans who are adverse to science. I've provided some links for you below.

As far as the Tutsis and Hutus, once again, the conflict has very little to do with what you've imagined. This is one of the best quick answers from a longer response. "It is important to remember that what happened during the colonial and post-colonial era was not simply that the Germans and Belgians imposed racial ideas onto Africans who were not really separate 'tribes' or even separate ethnic groups, since they all spoke the same language and held the same religious beliefs. I’ll get to that next. But the point to be made here is that the Rwandans unfortunately had to contend with colonialists at the tail end of a hundred years of political turmoil and war in which farmers were being severely oppressed by the Rwanda chiefs and everybody was scrambling to gain stakes in the new political game created by the colonial administrators.

Colonial scholars created a race hypothesis for Rwanda based on phenotype. Tutsis were thought to be a superior race of Nilotic people who had migrated into the area from the north, conquered supposedly indigenous Hutus, and imposed their superior culture and statecraft on the them. Tutsi were thought to have an aristocratic culture and to be natural rulers. They were thought to be racially different from Hutus. Phenotypically, they were thought to be lighter skinned, higher nosed, and taller." https://www.quora.com/Belgium/How-did-the-Belgians-legitimize-their-preference-for-the-Tutsi

As far as Nazi Germany, it's quite easy to research the creation of the construct of the Aryan race.

Here are some links for further reading. Let the information sink in to get some clarity.

https://soundcloud.com/inquiringminds/33-david-amodio-the-science-of-prejudice Interview of New York University neuroscientist David Amodio, an expert on the psychology of intergroup bias

http://www.strategicleadershipinstitute.net/news/your-racist-brain-the-neuroscience-of-conditioned-racism/

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/features/is-there-a-gene-for-racism/209831.article

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/10/new-evidence-that-racism-isnt-natural/263785/]]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2555431/

http://www.mintpressnews.com/MyMPN/racism-inherent-learned/