Everyone is racist to one degree or another. Everyone. It's in the genes, it's a powerful survival mechanism. Many people, including The Institute for Interracial Harmony above, believe that all racism is a learned conditioning, and that it can be unlearned. That's a "warm and fuzzy" Utopianism that flies in the face of human nature and human survival. The Institute for Interracial Harmony, and others, want to make it out to be that racism is a learned condition that only exists in this culture and in this society, when the fact is racism exists in every culture, in every society, and it always has existed going back as far in history as you want. It is true that the racism of race, color and ethnicity is a learned condition, but only to a certain degree, and unlearning it is not easy, and quite possibly is detrimental to do so.
People are naturally wary and suspect of others who are different, whatever those differences my be, including racial, cultural and ethnic differences. They naturally gravitate to other people like them, in terms of race, culture and ethnicity. They do so because it is not only comfortable and safe, but because "groupism" fosters survival and prosperity.
Groupism comes in many flavors, with the racism of race and ethnicity being just one of them. For example, you can take any disparate group of people and divide them into different groups, call each group by a different name, be it Red, White, Blue, Shirts, Skins, East, West, Ohio, Michigan, American, Russia, Protestant, Catholic, whatever, and a natural bias will always develop within each group. The natural bias has people favoring their own group, discounting and discriminating those of other groups, and often thriving based on their own cooperation within the group. "Ethnocentric" groupists eventually come to dominate over those who adopt different behavioral strategies, like acting randomly and not on concert with the group, or always cooperating with others whether in "their" group or not. Those within the group who act in defiance or in a way detrimental to the group are ostracized or discriminated against, just like someone from outside the group who already acts in a manner which is different from the group.
Groupism is obviously race independent in many cases, as many groups can form without regard to race or ethnicity. Like, Browns fans versus Steelers fans versus Bengals fans who all hate each others but will team up to crush that one lone pathetic Lions fan. Religious groups are powerful examples of groupism, where like-minded individuals gather and even recruit others into the group to the exclusion of non-like-minded people. While religious groups usually congregate within similar racial or ethnic groups, it's the religious culture that still dominates. Patriotism is another group which transcends racial and ethnic groupings, where everyone coalesces into a cultural group for the betterment and survival of the group.
Sure, on one emotional level it would be great if racism didn't exist. But then again, would it? In the short term, the feel good term, probably, but what about the long term? Countless studies, and history, shows unambiguously that groupism is a very powerful mechanism for survival of both the individual and the group, and does so without regard to race or color. We know, absolutely, that color, race and ethnicity have no real intrinsic biological significance. For example, we know that the genetic variation between individuals within one racial or ethnic group is generally much larger than the average difference between such groups. We know that on at least some level race and ethnicity are somewhat arbitrary markers that have acquired or learned meaning that doesn't necessarily promote the best interests of the vast majority of groups. So, then, why do people naturally group by race? Why is it that there is racial discrimination?
It's because how someone looks is the quickest, most immediate way to ascertain to which group they belong. If you're going to mentally allocate someone to a group on meeting them, the quickest way to do that is by how they look, and the most obvious thing about how someone looks is normally their skin color or obvious ethnicity. We've all seen someone of mixed race, and given them a quizzical look and said to ourselves, "What are they?" It's the most natural thing in the world. Sure, other factors are relevant, but by and large the basic biological origin of racism is as simple as that, due to our sense of sight being the most powerful and influential sense. If smell was our most powerful sense, we might well be grouping people instead by how they smell, just like dogs do.
History, controlled studies, and casual observation shows:
A. Groupism is the best behavioural strategy for individual social interactions, for both the individual and their group
B. People are affected by "survival of the fittest", natural selection works, and the fittest people tend to survive the best.
C. People are motivated (unconsciously or not) to propagate their own genes.
D. People's primary means of taking in information is through their sense of sight.
So while the markers of looks, of color, race and ethnicity is a learned thing, they are markers of racism with the immediacy of "looks like me" that have always been there within us, inborn, instinctive. And it is a fundamental mechanism of survival. So saying that all racism is a result of learned conditioning, and can just as easily be unlearned, is overly simplistic, and disingenuously Utopian in light of basic human nature. It would be nice, and maybe even critical, if our little group known as "society" can separate out the markers of racism in favor of the groupism of the society at large, but an inborn, survival mechanism is a tough bell to un-ring.
Our immediate goals should be more in line with the survival of the societal group by just being civil to each other and trying to get along, but you cannot do that by making people feel intellectually and emotionally guilty about an inborn survival mechanism, any more than you can make people feel guilty about any other natural, inborn mechanism. When you do that, you start messing with human nature, and the natural survival instinct is to rebel. Just take a look at how the very powerful mechanism of the drive to sexual reproduction is artificially repressed by many religions, and how people rebel against it, and the ramifications of being made to feel guilty for being human and succumbing and knuckling under to the evils of the natural instincts for survival.
Trying to erase racism, a natural inborn human condition, in favor of multiculturalism, has resulted in a society that is more racist and more divided along racial lines than at any time in our history.
No, my favorite show isn't Cops, nowhere near it. They don't show Cops on DSC, Hist, TLC and MH channels where I watch just about all the TV I watch other than a few network shows. It's always good for a laugh though. Maybe Cal is right. Maybe it's better to let fleeing felons make 100 mile high speed chases with multiple citizens hurt and/or killed along the way than the police being able to PIT them without multi-levels of command and authorizations. Maybe it's better to let them jump out of the cars after the 100 mile high speed chase and run off on foot to harm innocent citizens than to stop them. Yeah. The hell with citizens and their rights. All hail the criminals and their rights. What a joke of an idea.
