Racism

Racism according to Merriam Webster is the belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race. Racism is a scar off the human condition, a taboo trait in society today. Though, this week in class we learned that we are all implicitly racist to one degree or another. We learned that we are raised to believe white is better than black. This was somewhat shocking to me but what was really interesting was that even african-american children are conditioned to believe white is better than black. That shows that racism and prejudice are cultivated on a subliminal level because even families that intentionally try to raise their families as tolerant and open minded end up with this seemingly inherent belief of "white is better than black." This supports my belief that getting rid of racism is an unrealistic goal. That no matter how hard we try to rid ourselves of this stain on humanity we may make some progress toward getting rid of it but we will never completely rid ourselves of it completely. Like my uncle who I mentioned in my blog many posts back, he was raised in a town with only people that looked like him. And when he went on a cruise later in his life he actually feared black people. He feared people different from him because he'd never seen someone different from him before the cruise. But people who grow up around diverse cultures do not have this excuse. And yet we still have people like the neo-nazis, white supremacists, and other groups who are backwards and need a scapegoat for their problems much like the nazis did 70 years ago. By spending their time hating they believe they are giving their pointless lives some false sense of meaning. Now I will sign off before I get into a ranting tirade.