I think it's a combination of both. If we're born and can see that our skin color is white and that most people around us are white than we're conditioned to think that's normal and view people who aren't white as not normal somehow. However this is very light racism and as well ingrained into ones gray-matter as a tumbleweed and can easily be taught away. However for someone to be a fascist or an apartheid-supporter they have to have that bigotry nurtured by the environment their raised in.
Racism: Nature or Nurture?
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Prejudice is hard-coded into us at the very beginning. Basic survival skill. Like discerning whether or not something wants to kill you or just passively become your food. Now, this developing into racism is outside of basic biological necessity, in my opinion. Therefore, racism is something that is learned, not inherent.
Racism doesn't really exist. People will be assholes to others based on their inferred background rather than their actual background.
Aggression based on perceived racial characteristics does, but that's general xenophobia, which is both Nature (Birds of a feather) and Nurture (Beware the Stranger).
Aggression based on perceived racial characteristics does, but that's general xenophobia, which is both Nature (Birds of a feather) and Nurture (Beware the Stranger).
I would say that derogatory racism, thinking of differences in a negative light is something that is nurtured and learned.
Passive racism, that exists in everyone, involving assessing differences in groups, and contrasting those with the self's own image and characteristics, that's something that all humans are born with. Everyone does that, acts different around those that are different from themselves in some ways.
Passive racism, that exists in everyone, involving assessing differences in groups, and contrasting those with the self's own image and characteristics, that's something that all humans are born with. Everyone does that, acts different around those that are different from themselves in some ways.
Racism would be a manifest form of the inherent us vs them. As mentioned earlier, people fear what they don't understand and thus are closer and relate to things that they understand. The things that they understand (including types of people) they would accept and things that they would be not used to would be the things they are prejudiced against (i.e. race, culture, religion, sexual orientation, gender, socio-economic levels, etc).
Hate is a learned behavior, you're not born knowing how to hate. Racism is learned from those around you, whether intentionally or unintentionally.
This may be true, at first, but if you have enough experiences then you will realize that people are people no matter what the race, some are OK, most are assholes.TehCookie said:
Unless you are stupid, and then you will continue to be a racist no matter what.
racism isn't born into you, it's a product of your culture. some people with larger fear lobes are more likely to become racists, paranoid, republican, etc. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_theticket/20110411/pl_yblog_theticket/will-president-obama-and-the-house-gop-ever-agree-science-suggests-no). as proof, walk around as a black man in montgomery, then do the same thing in new hampshire. same people, different reaction
A little of both, different is scary, people are told stupid things and run with it.
The real question is, even if you can consecutively prove that it is 100% nature, does that somehow make it excusable?
The real question is, even if you can consecutively prove that it is 100% nature, does that somehow make it excusable?
"Nature does nothing to prepare men to be slaves or slave-holders."
-Fredrick Douglas, from My Bondage and My Freedom
Go read that. I say it pretty much settles my stance that racism is nutured. If you put a group of young kids in a sandbox and they are all different races, they'll all play together until someone tells them that it's wrong because they are different races.
Racism is nurtured ignorance. Pure and simple.
-Fredrick Douglas, from My Bondage and My Freedom
Go read that. I say it pretty much settles my stance that racism is nutured. If you put a group of young kids in a sandbox and they are all different races, they'll all play together until someone tells them that it's wrong because they are different races.
Racism is nurtured ignorance. Pure and simple.
Racism can't really be genetic since races themselves are social constructs. There was a time when people thought Irish people were black. Italians, Jews, Irish, and a whole bunch of other people weren't considered white...then they were. In the US we have black and white...and one drop of black blood would make you black. South Africa had white, black, and colored. We make all this stuff up.
That said, whenever someone asks nature vs. nurture I respond like so: False Binary. We will never have people as bodies without having them in society....we will never have societies without bodies. Our bodies (even our genetics) are changed by the things we do to them and the environment we live in. The two things can not be disentangled. Rather than arguing about something that can have no answer, let us rather discuss how to make society a bit better.
That said, whenever someone asks nature vs. nurture I respond like so: False Binary. We will never have people as bodies without having them in society....we will never have societies without bodies. Our bodies (even our genetics) are changed by the things we do to them and the environment we live in. The two things can not be disentangled. Rather than arguing about something that can have no answer, let us rather discuss how to make society a bit better.
I read something in society that we are drawn to people with similar genetic traits, in a similar effect to protecting our family, we subconsiusly want our traits, even from other people, passed on. This isn't the same as straight up racism, but when I look around my college campus, I see many groups separated by race. I don't exactly know what to make of that, but I've noticed it. I also know in my own experience, watching basketball in the 1st grade, I never even realized that it was black dominated, race wasn't something I even considered until I was told what it was. Then you look at history when races first ran in to each other, and that never went well. But even that seems like mod mentality. In the end though the idea of people being born racist is a little ridiculous.
Racism isn't something you're born with.
At best you can call it a manifestation of several different human traits combined.
The first is impossible to eliminate because it underpins part of what makes us intelligent:
The ability to group related things together.
Why are cars and trees different? That's discrimination! (A joke obviously, though not entirely. being discriminating is sometimes taken in this context. Because what it means, if you take away all the other implications, is "to tell things apart". - In other words, to say that two things are different.)
The other, would seem to be in-group and out-group mentality.
Fanboys are an obvious manifestation of this...
Sony fans hating microsoft products and praising Sony ones, (and vice versa) is one example of this.
Frequently, you defend your 'in' group even when it's obvious there's something bad or stupid involved in doing so...
And attack the 'out' group even when there's nothing about such a group that warrants the way you're attacking them.
That's the origins of the problem, pretty much.
But everything else around it isn't set in stone.
It isn't hardwired anywhere for one person to hate some other person or group. It's something you learn.
And while the 'us and them' mentality is strong, it isn't insurmountable either. It can be made weaker or stronger...
Anyway, it's the whole nature VS nurture argument academics have only been having for at least the last 200 years...
Current answer from researchers:
You are shaped by your environment, but your genes predispose you to certain things.
However, 'environment' is everything you've ever been exposed to. From the moment of conception. (or perhaps even before that, if you think about it...)
Well, anyway... I can't really add much more to it than that.
At best you can call it a manifestation of several different human traits combined.
The first is impossible to eliminate because it underpins part of what makes us intelligent:
The ability to group related things together.
Why are cars and trees different? That's discrimination! (A joke obviously, though not entirely. being discriminating is sometimes taken in this context. Because what it means, if you take away all the other implications, is "to tell things apart". - In other words, to say that two things are different.)
The other, would seem to be in-group and out-group mentality.
Fanboys are an obvious manifestation of this...
Sony fans hating microsoft products and praising Sony ones, (and vice versa) is one example of this.
Frequently, you defend your 'in' group even when it's obvious there's something bad or stupid involved in doing so...
And attack the 'out' group even when there's nothing about such a group that warrants the way you're attacking them.
That's the origins of the problem, pretty much.
But everything else around it isn't set in stone.
It isn't hardwired anywhere for one person to hate some other person or group. It's something you learn.
And while the 'us and them' mentality is strong, it isn't insurmountable either. It can be made weaker or stronger...
Anyway, it's the whole nature VS nurture argument academics have only been having for at least the last 200 years...
Current answer from researchers:
You are shaped by your environment, but your genes predispose you to certain things.
However, 'environment' is everything you've ever been exposed to. From the moment of conception. (or perhaps even before that, if you think about it...)
Well, anyway... I can't really add much more to it than that.
Nurture is the only bit that matters.
Being a white kid in an extremely white-and-Asian neighborhood, I never had issues with white people or Asians. When I got to grade two, I ended up next to a hispanic kid, I'd never seen one outside of TV. How did I react? I was a bit worried that the color would come off on my skin (I have OCD), but beyond that, I didn't think any less of him. When we started learning about WWII and the Confederacy, I was completely confused as to why anyone was being chosen over another based on color.
If humans are "naturally racist", then explain why I couldn't understand the concept when I first heard of it.
Being a white kid in an extremely white-and-Asian neighborhood, I never had issues with white people or Asians. When I got to grade two, I ended up next to a hispanic kid, I'd never seen one outside of TV. How did I react? I was a bit worried that the color would come off on my skin (I have OCD), but beyond that, I didn't think any less of him. When we started learning about WWII and the Confederacy, I was completely confused as to why anyone was being chosen over another based on color.
If humans are "naturally racist", then explain why I couldn't understand the concept when I first heard of it.
Little bit of both. Young children don't differentiate at all between different racial groups (under 1 year old). However, after 1 they start to show differences between colour groups, but it only manifests itself as being more likely to recognise someone of a predominant colour (a white child being raised in a primarily asian environment will be more likely to recognise asian children instead of white children)
The old staple of 'I cant tell any of you people apart' is hardcoded into our DNA, but it is not in itself racism, nor is it related to your own skin colour, but the colour you spend most of your time among.
Whether this then becomes racism, actual fear and disgust towards other people, is entirely nurture. The capacity to distinguish 'Us and Them' is part of nature, whether 'Them' is identified in someway as wrong is nurture.
The old staple of 'I cant tell any of you people apart' is hardcoded into our DNA, but it is not in itself racism, nor is it related to your own skin colour, but the colour you spend most of your time among.
Whether this then becomes racism, actual fear and disgust towards other people, is entirely nurture. The capacity to distinguish 'Us and Them' is part of nature, whether 'Them' is identified in someway as wrong is nurture.