Dagobahn Eagle
04-07-2003, 10:00 PM
I started a debate on this a long time ago, and it was something that attracted a lot of people, and it's a global issue: Race/minority group relations.
My question is, how do we fight racism? To answer that, I'm going to define racism: Believing that your race is superior to another race. Racism is closely related to generalizing and stereotyping, except those two can be solved easily by geography and history education.
Racism is more tricky. Yes, education will go a long way, but education might also do more harm than good (for example, some dark-skinned people in the USA start getting an attitude towards light people when learning about the Civil Rights Movement of the 60's).
My propoasal, however, is the opposite: Ignorance to differences.
Society as we live in today draws way too many lines. In my opinion, with respect to Racial Pride, words describing races, sexual orientation, fetishes, economic classes etc. all have to go. Sure, we should learn about foreign countries (goes without saying), but don't teach kids to classify before they get into middle/high school (by then they'll be integrated enough to understand that segregation is ridiculous). Also, don't teach geography by starting with asking kids what comes to mind when thinking about a specific continent/region, such as Africa. If someone did this about Europe, I would have laughed.
You may ask how on Earth this would help, so let me explain: When do children start stereotyping and segregating by race? Not the first time they meet a child with a different skin colour, but when they learn the concept of races: Call these people that, those people that.
To illustrate: My little brother (4th grade), upon moving here, was to describe a dark-skinned kid in his class and surprise, described him by his clothing. He's not blind: He must have seen that the kid's skin colour was different, yet he didn't care. That's the society that I want (now, sadly, he's learned about races and stereotypes Asians like my mom on crack).
Another example: If you travel to Scandinavia (and probably other leftist nations) there will be little or no segregation by classes. Why? Because we don't categorize level of income into classes like most other nations do. Actually, although I had friends with bigger and smaller houses than mine and more or less stuff than me, I never classified them or called anyone different on the basis of that, simply because I couldn't. Nor did anyone else I knew, except from the trouble-makers, and no one I've known in my school have ever been picked on for their low income.. except from when people display their income, that's when we call them snobs.
If someone asked me how much money I had, I'd call the person extremely eccentric. Yes, we notice the differences, but we're not told how to draw lines. By the age of 11-14 we're starting to learn the facts (naturally), but by then we're integrated and don't care about each others' income (except from allowance, etc.:D), simply because we think it's irrelevant..
What's my conclusion? Well, look at the way a child's mind works:
If you tell your kid to spend more time with another kid, he'll want to spend less time with that kid and the other way around.
If you inform your kid that his friend is different in a way, the kid will also spend less time with that kid (unless they're already friends).
So in conclusion, don't tell your kid that every group is equal: Refrain from telling him they are different groups in the first place. Look at words like "gay" and "homo". You hear those words befor you realise what they mean, and by the time you realise what they mean, you've started to associate them with something bad.
My question is, how do we fight racism? To answer that, I'm going to define racism: Believing that your race is superior to another race. Racism is closely related to generalizing and stereotyping, except those two can be solved easily by geography and history education.
Racism is more tricky. Yes, education will go a long way, but education might also do more harm than good (for example, some dark-skinned people in the USA start getting an attitude towards light people when learning about the Civil Rights Movement of the 60's).
My propoasal, however, is the opposite: Ignorance to differences.
Society as we live in today draws way too many lines. In my opinion, with respect to Racial Pride, words describing races, sexual orientation, fetishes, economic classes etc. all have to go. Sure, we should learn about foreign countries (goes without saying), but don't teach kids to classify before they get into middle/high school (by then they'll be integrated enough to understand that segregation is ridiculous). Also, don't teach geography by starting with asking kids what comes to mind when thinking about a specific continent/region, such as Africa. If someone did this about Europe, I would have laughed.
You may ask how on Earth this would help, so let me explain: When do children start stereotyping and segregating by race? Not the first time they meet a child with a different skin colour, but when they learn the concept of races: Call these people that, those people that.
To illustrate: My little brother (4th grade), upon moving here, was to describe a dark-skinned kid in his class and surprise, described him by his clothing. He's not blind: He must have seen that the kid's skin colour was different, yet he didn't care. That's the society that I want (now, sadly, he's learned about races and stereotypes Asians like my mom on crack).
Another example: If you travel to Scandinavia (and probably other leftist nations) there will be little or no segregation by classes. Why? Because we don't categorize level of income into classes like most other nations do. Actually, although I had friends with bigger and smaller houses than mine and more or less stuff than me, I never classified them or called anyone different on the basis of that, simply because I couldn't. Nor did anyone else I knew, except from the trouble-makers, and no one I've known in my school have ever been picked on for their low income.. except from when people display their income, that's when we call them snobs.
If someone asked me how much money I had, I'd call the person extremely eccentric. Yes, we notice the differences, but we're not told how to draw lines. By the age of 11-14 we're starting to learn the facts (naturally), but by then we're integrated and don't care about each others' income (except from allowance, etc.:D), simply because we think it's irrelevant..
What's my conclusion? Well, look at the way a child's mind works:
If you tell your kid to spend more time with another kid, he'll want to spend less time with that kid and the other way around.
If you inform your kid that his friend is different in a way, the kid will also spend less time with that kid (unless they're already friends).
So in conclusion, don't tell your kid that every group is equal: Refrain from telling him they are different groups in the first place. Look at words like "gay" and "homo". You hear those words befor you realise what they mean, and by the time you realise what they mean, you've started to associate them with something bad.