How will racial discrimination be stopped if it is present in adults and kids experience it daily?

Question

Older kids than me (I'm 13) show racism everyday and they curse so repeatedly that it's a part of their "normal" vocabulary. They have a bad temper and no one stands up to them. And younger kids are badly influenced by them and this event repeats again as a cycle.

Well I am a muslim so when you say that you target every individual who is a muslim. But because of the bombing such a bad impression has been developed about muslims and it applies to every muslim. Basically I am being treated badly for something I didn't do.

Answer 1

Racial discrimination is rooted in our genetics and goes back thousands of years. What we tend to think of as racial discrimination is usually a black/white issue; but in reality, tribes and nations have discriminated against any who don't look like them probably since the beginning of time. Even among Asians, the Koreans, Japanese, Chinese and Filipinos often are as likely to harbor prejudices against each other as Euro/Afro-centric blacks and whites; and the catalog of hate crimes against indiginous peoples by conquering invaders from other shores is as long as the written history. So, we have nature working against us from the start. But that doesn't mean there isn't hope. As bad as things may seem to your 13-year-old eyes, things have actually gotten drastically better than they were just 50 years ago. If you have mixed races in school squaring off against each other, that's not pleasant, but at least you have mixed races in school together. When I was 13, that would not have been the case. White schools were full of white kids from white neighborhoods, and so on. Many of us grew up using racial epithets and living on stereotypes not only because that's what we heard from the adults around us; but also because we didn't KNOW any people of another race, and didn't know that the stereotypes were false. Now, white kids embrace black culture, especially in music and the fashions it spawns. Black athletes have become role models, multi-ethnic powerhouse celebrities like Tiger Woods make it OK to be not just one race, but many. Multi-racial couples are not beaten and killed on the streets as they quite seriously once would have been, in fact, while the less-enlightened may still make remarks under their breath, open hostility is probably a lot less in all regards. I am caucasian, married to an Asian woman. My children are therefore mixed race, and very visibly so, and even in places that pride themselves on being "redneck," we have not had problems. There is work to be done. As blacks themselves point out, sports, movies and music should not be the only place where blacks are applauded for their successes -- and I believe they are not, but those are the areas most visible. People like Colin Powell help the cause. What you can do at your age is to have the courage to speak up when it won't get you physically injured. You can pick a time to tell your same-race friends that you don't really share the view that other races are inferior. You can admit that it's OK to hate someone's behavior while not blaming that on their skin color. And we adults can do our part by listening to feedback from young people like yourself, thereby acknowledging there is still a problem, and working from our positions to help change it. Now, as for the cursing, you're right that once forbidden words have become so common in public that nobody even seems offended anymore. Approaching the offender has, in my experience, not done anything productive. While I don't like it, I try to remind myself they are, after all, just words, and it's kind of silly for words to be "naughty" after all (unless they are words specifically intended to hurt people's feelings). Stay groovy.

Answer 2

We need to teach kids one very important phrase : It's no big deal.

On a train in Chicago, my daughter (3 at the time) noticed a little black girl in the next seat. She asked why the girl was so dark. I said that's just how she was. The other little girl, about the same age, in turn asked her father why my daughter was so white. The father just smiled at me and gave his daughter the same response. It was enough. There was no need to overexplain the situation, as so many people like to do. Kids are perceptive - they don't need the entire situation explained, they just want an answer to their question.

As a society, I think we have become more racially tolerant. However, our tolerance hasn't led to less racism. Racism isn't always a "bad" thing - any kind of racial profiling is racist. We've gotten to the point that we emphasize our differences in a "good way" in order to enable this idea that we have to compensate for centuries of wrongdoing. MLK Jr had it right, we need a color blind society. We need people to look at a a different race and see skin color the same as hair or eye color.

Answer 3

I can answer that from personal experience as a child in the south when racial tensions were high. I saw discrimination everywhere but I had the intelligence to know it was wrong. As a small child I could not understand the thinking of bigots. You are much more intelligent than people that you are around everyday. Be glad of that. You will make a difference even if you don't realize it. There are younger kids that look up to you also.

Answer 4

People are leaders or followers. If you are a leader, have courage and speak what is right. Stand up against racism! If you are a follower, seek those dedicated to ending discrimination and work for them. Pray that discrimination will come to an end in your lifetime.

Answer 5

It will never stop because there is too much bad blood out there. Things are better now than 30 years ago, though. With all the illegal mexicans sneaking in, thats another bad blood issue. The muslims blowing up stuff, is another. Chinese looking down their noses at america is another one. Too many issues, so it'll never completely end.

Answer 6

People need to understand that even though we are all different we are the same. We have the same feelings, sometimes see things the same, and have a lot to offer each other. Maybe it would take one big conference. I mean BIG. Everyone, getting out their frustrations, learning about other cultures and finding that we are all not as different as we may think.

Answer 7

Take that question that asks what race you are off of the surveys. Get rid of BLACK bike week and make bike week two weeks long. WOOO WOOO!! Encourage comedy central to hire more comedians like mencia, chappelle, and the blue collar comedy tour guys. Turn your music down so we don't have to listen to it. Just some ideas, but I think it's a start.

Answer 8

IT WON'T!!!! It will only stop when parents start being smart about how they raise their children. The problem is that the parents are not teaching their children; they are letting others influence and teach their children. It will only stop when we all know how to come together and treat each other with respect and kindness.

Answer 9

i feel like racism will never end. it is only how we react to racial discrimination that makes us different from everyone else. either be above it all or blend in. it's hard. i grew up with racial prejudice in my own country which has led to me not wanting to ever return or socialize with people from where i'm from. for a kid, racism can be very traumatizing.

Answer 10

I for one am not racist i am also 13. But people that are racist and place all people of the same race riligion or anything like that into one group and say there are bad people need to open up there mind and think.