The Psychology of Racism

Me again,

This post is not about my course but about the psychology behind racism.
What is racism?
Racism is a form of prejudice that discriminates against a race of people. Racism does not just refer to the African-American population, but to all races.
One of the things I have never understand is why people judge someone they've never met based on the color of their skin or their country of birth. Why does skin matter? When we die, our skin will decompose and then what does it matter then? And if it doesn't matter then, why should it matter now?
If it's one thing I've learned in my few years of life, it's that the soul, mind, and brain does not have a race. Under the skin, every thing is the same. We all have two lungs, two kidneys, a stomach, a brain, a liver, legs, arms, feet, and most importantly, we all have one heart. Judging people by their skin color only makes you skin deep as well.
Racism is basically saying that I am going to hate you because you are....
And while this isn't the mid 20th century and we've come a long way since segregation, racism still exists. Recently, I saw this remark about Hispanic immigrants coming to America. He said that his ancestors didn't travel 2000 miles over the sea to have the country run over by immigrants. Someone replied to him saying no his ancestors traveled 2000 miles to be the first immigrants. America is suppose to be the land of dreams and opportunities. A chance to start a better life. That's why the founding fathers left their homes and traveled to the new world.
Now the psychology. A recent study that a majority of Caucasian Americans believe that minorities, specifically African-Americans and Hispanic Americans, are less intelligent, more prone to violence, and would rather live on welfare than work.
Unlike other psychology subjects, prejudice is mostly social issues and not because of the brain. It's about power, politically, economically, and socially. But if you only have love for your own race, then you only leave space to discriminate, and to discriminate only generates hate. Hatred leads to anger which leads to violence and stupidity.
Each person is different. Racism only hurts and makes us feel better about ourselves while putting others down.
So how can we get rid of racism and other prejudices? Studies have shown that attitudes only change when behavior changes.
The best example of this is the movie Remember the Titans, which is based on a true story. It takes place in 1971 in a small southern town in Virginia. It's about a desegregated high school which as just started to bus African-American students to a traditionally white school in a traditionally white neighborhood. The plot revolves around a black coach taking over as head coach of the football team. All the white football players decide to quit and the tryouts only gets a turnout of black students and one open minded white guy. But the previous head coach convinces the white players that they should stay and in the end, he decides to stay as well. The team goes off to two weeks of football camp, but there's an obvious separation and it gets to the point where the players won't block a player of the other race. But over the two weeks, they must learn something about each player of the other race. They soon learn that each person is different and become friends and for once a team. They, then, come home and find their new friendships tested by the prejudice of others. But as they start to win games, the town slowly realizes that on the field, race does not decide who is best. The team and the town changed their behavior which changed their attitude and a small group who stood up and said I'm not going to give up until everyone gets fair treatment.
So as Gandhi once said, "Be the change you wish to see in the world." Gandhi changed the whole world's point of view mostly on his own and he refused to back down. If one person can change an entire world, why can't everyone? Well that's me.

"There's just one race, Humanity."
Q

Until next time,

Stephani