Is racism an educational failure?

In a way, it’s a lack of education, but it’s more passionate than that. If someone had never learned to read, and someone offered to teach them, they would be happy and grateful for their new found knowledge. With something like racism, a person may eventually learn to be tolerant and accepting, but they would often be stubborn initially. Being racist is more along the lines of religion or disciplinary ideas: it’s something a person is raised with, and to question it would seem inherently wrong. If a person is raised to be racist, it’s not just something that can be taught away; that person has to admit wrong in themselves and their parental figures, and be willing to change their own beliefs.

It’s a variety of many things, you can never pin it one thing. People are so dynamic from a general aspect, perception, ideology and opinion of racism against other nationalities are generated based on interactions and experiences.

No.

It’s a personal choice failure.

No. An educational failure resulted in racism.

@OwlofHappiness Great answer! I guess that is the way I see it for the most part. I do have a question, though…..
If someone is “raised to be racist”, do you think that person can rebel against it from the beginning? Never really believe what is being taught to them…..never take it to heart…..always believe that something else is the truth even if the truth is never presented? Or, do you think someone who is raised to be racist is doomed from the start to be….well, racist.

@zander101 I agree that it can never be pinned on one thing. I agree because I have been there and I have seen the inner workings of racism…...the “cogs”, if you will….that cause a person to either believe or disbelieve the things they are told. Thank you!

@Lulaa I don’t think anyone is doomed. It’s like alcoholism. If it’s in your family, you’re more prone to have it, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to.

@ibstubro So, you believe it is entirely educational? If someone goes to college and generally loads up on education….do you think that erases racism (if, indeed, that person was raised to be racist)? Or, do you believe it is the education that is given by our parents, guardians?

It’s a societal failure. I read recently that people who are highly educated are just as likely to be racist. It’s not just education in schools or in the home. Racism exists within structures and within cultural memes.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir

I disagree that it is a societal failure as society includes me.

Making my life’s decisions on factors other than racist ones isn’t rocket science.

Besides, there’s too many legitimate factors to consider when making a choice.

It requires intellectual honesty and an individual moral code.

It even takes the knowledge that I stand to gain nothing by engaging in the racism game.

@SecondHandStoke Well, that’s nice…for you. But, society doesn’t only include you and historical injustices onto which contemporary injustices (through structures that are also larger than you) are mapped are larger than you. When I say ‘society,’ I mean more than individual choices and actions and more than our lifetime.

It is not an educational failure.

I was not raised to be racist. I went to college and did well.

I have peers who are well educated and are black and don’t see them as being different. One of my coordinators is black and is a very nice, well educated woman and I enjoy working under her.

Yet I think, since moving into the city, I am more racist in my mind towards poor and/or uneducated blacks. My boyfriend and I lived on a street and some violent things happened that some black people did. A home invasion. I have been stalked and followed to my car by blacks on my street.

I fear and avoid blacks from the ghetto. I go out of my way to avoid them because I am afraid. If I hear a black person yelling at someone outside, I pull down my curtains and pretend I’m not home. When an unknown black person knocks on my door and he’s not the police or a delivery man, I pretend to not be home. In my old apartment, I heard a gun go off at night. I looked outside to see a black person walking around suspiciously and decided against calling the police because I feared retaliation. Actually, I heard a lot of guns go off and it always ended up being some black guy shooting another black guy… I decided not to get involved because I didn’t want to make myself a target. I avoid patronizing businesses in the ghetto because I am afraid and feel like I don’t belong there and am open to being mugged, which happens often in my city. I don’t go on certain streets and I don’t go out past 11pm.

My father was not racist but he had been stabbed and assaulted by young, black men on multiple times in this same city, years ago. For his car and whatnot. I need to protect myself.

Ultimately, I want out of this city and back into my safer hometown that I can commute from. Yes, I’m going to commit white flight, so sue me. I just want to feel safe again.

I believe my racism is a learned behavior.

It is not always a bad thing. I am very very cautious around black drivers and do my best not to piss them off because I don’t want to be followed home.

Racism is created usually by the environment. It’s a learned behavior. Racism cannot be entirely due to lack of education, because there are some very intelligent and educated people who are also racist. Some of its due to ignorance. Some of its due to intelligence. Most views tend to come from the beliefs and teachings of their parents. Parents might not be telling there kids to grow up being racist, but the subtle messages will definitely have a big impact on them growing up. Its not only just the parents, its the messages they see on tv and also online”.

Education (or lack of) can certainly be part of the problem, but there are many contributing factors. Just an FYI, I was raised in a racist family, and rebelled against it from a very early age. It can certainly be overcome.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir

All of society’s maladies are the cumulative result of a multitude of individual choices.

@seekingwolf What a courageous answer. I would not call what you are experiencing: Racism.
I would call what you are experiencing, legitimate fear and concern for your own safety and your family’s safety. Listen, if something happens continuously and it happens in the same manner, in the same area, by the same people, over and over again…..one could hardly call you a racist. It’s like saying: “I accidentally step in that ant bed every time I go to tend my garden and the ants always bite me!” and then someone saying that you are being intentionally bigoted because you have a fear of those ants.

@SecondHandStoke Yea, that’s neither here nor there. The cumulative is where I agree with you since it takes more than one person to change society.

@Lulaa

I don’t really like to admit that I’m racist but I think I sort of am. Although I do get nervous around sketchy white trash people too. I guess it’s not really limited to race but it sort of is. It’s the race that sets me off as well as the behavior.

If I had to pin point, I’d say that I’m afraid of uneducated, unknown, young blacks, usually but not limited to men. I’ll be the first to admit that when I see them alone, stranded with a broken car, I don’t stop because I think it’s risky.

After the Zimmerman trial, my city had protests that took up the metro area so I locked up my doors and didn’t leave for a whole weekend to protect myself and my boyfriend. My father’s father barricaded his family in the house when MLK was shot because the blacks in the town went nuts and burned a bunch of town buildings and tipped a few cars.

I don’t know. I feel sad that I’m afraid. I’m 24. I thought my generation was to fully break through this whole race thing. Now here I am, scared of black people.

@seekingwolf Are you truly scared of black people, in general? Or are you scared of anyone making a scene, inciting a riot, inducing violence, etc.?
For example, say you and I were friends and I brought you over to my house and I had another friend there. When you walk in, you see that my other friend is a black male. Do you think you would be automatically afraid or fearful of him?

@Lulaa

Assuming that your friend is a well spoken, nice, non-ghetto person who doesn’t act like he’s going to fly off the handle or flip the fuck out, then no, I wouldn’t be scared.

My fear is primarily for people, namely blacks but also others, who act in ways that make me nervous. Of course I am scared when they are acting all ghetto, talking in loud voices, being threatening, speaking poorly of others to the point they sound like they are gonna do something, swearing a lot, etc. But I also get scared when I see them acting sketchy, loitering, staring at me for anytime longer than 5 seconds when they are strangers and I’m out on the street. And depending where I am, if it’s what I consider to be a sketchy area, then I may be on high alert and avoid any and all blacks in that area.

I have no issues with well educated, polite, non ghetto blacks. I actually had a black doctor work work my surgeon to do an outpatient procedure on me recently and thought nothing of it, short of “oh these guys know what they are doing, I’ll be just fine”. I also get to work with some black nurses and they are great at their jobs and am happy to work with them.

Ugh. I still feel bad. My mom dated a black guy when she was my age. I guess I am not as evolved.

There is a theory that racism has an evolutionary basis. If this is so then education would be one way to correct a natural tendency, the way that we are taught that the Sun does not revolve around the Earth. I know that I have unconscious racist tendencies. It showed up when I took the IAT Both my parents were overtly racist. I make a conscious effort not to evaluate people based on race.

Something else just occurred to me. If our biases are based on who is a member of our local community, then it would follow that integration in both communities and schools may be the best way of preventing racism.

The issue with integration is that the bad schools are the predominantly black ones and the good ones are predominant white. With the achievement gap, the unspoken truth is that when you integrate, you have to dumb down the curriculum for many minority students who are behind.

Racism aside, parents aren’t going to sacrifice their kid’s education and future in the name of diversity.

In my city, the schools are very segregated. As soon as the schools get a lot of the poor black students, all of the white students are pulled out by parents and placed elsewhere.

For me, the two most important things to avoid racism are family and school education. If they are absent and you don’t prevent it from early ages, it is surely going to be a hard problem to solve.

No, racism is not an educational failure. It is a societal phenomenon. If anything, racism in education is a reflection of racism in society, not the cause of it.

This is not a failure of education. It is bad education. Racism is learned at home and in your environment. If anything our schools teach the results of racism (slavery, holocaust, civil rights movement, etc.). We’re so quick to blame the problem on our schools but this behavior is learned at home first.

In my opinion, there are five main causes of racism. One can be enough to turn people into racists, but often, at least two are at work.

1) Lack of intelligence
2) Lack of education
3) Lack of exposure to diverse communities
4) Frustration and disappointment with life
5) Insatiable hunger for power

There are a few intelligent and educated neo-Nazi leaders for example (they know that skin color is not a major human feature, but keep this to themselves) who enjoy being in charge of dumb and uneducated neo-Nazis.

Lack of exposure to diverse communities. That point kind of sums it up for me. The brain kind of stores away ideas and concepts about things and people. Sometimes we end up only picking up those references that serve an initial thought about something.

It is more lack of exposure than lack of education.