It is important to understand what racism is. What is Racism? The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition defines racism as “The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to other” or “Discrimination or prejudice based on race.” My layman speak defines racism as “mean behavior toward people based on race”.
Where does racism come from?
First it comes from a belief that people are different based on cultural background. I think most people feel this way. Genetically we are all different, since our ancestry determines genetics, people must be different based on culture.
Second, racism comes from people who believe that we as individuals are completely determined by our environment; therefore our fathers were racists so we must be racists because we grew up in that environment. Surprisingly many educated people believe that individuals have very little choice with regard to their behavior that somehow they are victims of society and should not be held accountable for their actions.
The last ingredient is forced acceptance of cultural values as important. You cannot force people to like your heritage, value those who characterize it, or celebrate the differences, which distinguish your culture from all others, they must choose to on their own. The more you push the more you push away.
Think for a minute it the most prolific racist Adolph Hitler had won his war, eliminating all races. By creating one single race with one single identity, and forcing acceptance to the culture of one, would he not have effectively ended racism? Sure there would be other ways to discriminate based on x, y, and z, but racism or discrimination based on race would not exist. Ironic that a racist like Hitler would have ended racism.
The only way to eradicate racism is to eliminate all race descriptions including any cultural value individual societies have to offer. For example, if we only recognized or only knew the "American race" no individual or group could be discriminated against, favorably or otherwise.
Fortunately we value the diversity each race has to offer and therefore will always subject society to those who do not value differences. We must allow people the freedom to choose to be a racist or not. Freedom comes at a price; bad people are allowed to be; mean, stupid, or ignorant. Bad people will be judged. A racist will serve a self-sentence of spending life without the joy of embracing the variety, or the spice of life. The value of celebrating other cultures with them so greatly exceeds the value of feeling you are superior to other races.
©2004 Mark C. Carroll
All Rights Reserved
I read and enjoyed your article on how to end racism. You made an interesting point about the irony of the racist Hitler if he had succeeded in his war may have ended racism. I feel you are a good man and can see the danger of the evil of racism. You have probably given a lot more thought to it than I have but I feel racism is just one branch of the overall evil of discrimination. Discrimination has been with us since the earliest of times when one village or cave was wary of the village or cave on the other side of the hill. The only difference between racism and other forms of discrimination is that it is easier usually to recognise the different races. Even if Hitler had won his war and succeeded in eliminating many races I doubt if he would have succeeded in eliminating discrimination. I believe there are three causes for discrimination, fear born of insecurity, Basic hatred within the heart of some individuals that looks for some outlet to vent it on, hatred that is taught to an individual or group by someone with basic hatred in their heart or by someone who benefits from the practice of that discrimination.
I am by no means an expert on this subject and have not studied psychology, but having been born and raised in Northern Ireland I have witnessed discrimination based on religion, although in my opinion religion was just an excuse used for it. Most of the people of that poor country were all poor regardless of what religion they were, and good paying jobs were few and those who had them were afraid of losing them. I think the arrival on the scene of Ian Paisley and Bernadette Devlin on opposing sides provided an explosive situation that inflamed men's hearts and politicions used the situation to control sections of the population. I had already departed from that country before the Devlin/ Paisley bubble burst and could only observe sadly from a distance.
A few observations I have made, when fear born of insecurity is removed and the inflaming rhetoric has died down,ordinary people get along just fine. Also we have shown the ability to accept other races such as Chinese and Japanese. Perhaps one of these days we will find blacks and whites being more tolerant of eachother, but I think first both have to also learn it is a two way street.