What causes people to be racist and how to prevent it?

Answer 1

Racism is both learned from others and self taught by vesting into stereotypes. Unfortunately many people who are racist grow up and are taught such behavior by watching and listening to their PARENTS, Aunts, Uncles etc. This is happening in homes of all races, not just one.
While people are taught racism indirectly or not, the things they see and overhear from peers shapes their own opinions.
Racism is judging others based on their race. Whats happened today, because of racisim, are the victims of yesterday teaching their children and peers that everyone is racist, that they cannot succeed in life on their own merit, that no matter how hard they try, racists will keep them down, that all members of the race who offended them in the past are in fact racist when this is simply not true. This is reverse racism and is just as destructive. It teaches people to hate, it teaches people that they cannot succeed therefore they have to take what they can get when they can get it because nobody will let them go it the right way. Its really a parodoxial situation and one that hasnt gotten nearly enough attention on both sides of the issue.

Answer 2

I have a theory that it's intellectually lazy people that keep it going. Most people seem to have only a limited number of people that they actually know...beyond that, they resort to "Just like a (insert stereotype here)."

This leads to people who would realize that "left handed Lithuanian accordion players" would be too large a group to draw generalities about, yet they have no trouble saying "all Old People", "All Blacks" , "All Red Necks", or even "Men" or "Women"...whatever characteristic they can find to separate people into groups seems to be fair game, and a shortcut to avoid having to think about people as individuals.

You also have to realize that this is not a racial thing per say. People discriminate just as much by appearance, physical attributes such as blonds being dumb, red-heads being hot tempered, etc. It's all part of the same issue.

Economic separators are also quite common...and often more misleading...why would you feel more in danger of robbery in a low rent neighborhood, yet feel perfectly secure investing in Enron?

Nationalities are always sources of discrimination...look at the history of the Indian, the Irish, the Italian, The Russians, all these "classifications" bring to mind stereotypes that would prevent people from seeing a member of one of these groups as an individual.

The list can go on and on, and I am afraid that it will always be with us. I suppose that it does save a lot of brain power to lump people together like that, but you have to wonder what people are saving all that brain power for? Something spectacular I hope.

Answer 3

you have to be trained to be a racist.

Stop training people to be racist, and racism will vanish.

Affirmative action trains people to be racist by saying that one race needs special treatment compared to another. If it was going to cure racism... it would have worked by now. It didn't work.

Continuing to do the same thing and demanding it give a different result than what it has alas given in the past is insane.

The first step in curing racism, is for the "victims" to quit acting like victims. Rather than self-segregating and not even trying to mesh with SUCCESSFUL society... get an education, work and prove that you are equal or better than the racist.

The more the "oppressed" sits and whines, the longer it will be before racism is cured. But we promote the whining...

Neat trick the Democrats pulled. They claim to be anti-racist and they promote policies that ensure racism will continue. They look like heros to the "oppressed, when in reality they are promoting the oppression in the most effective manner possible.

Answer 4

The way a person was raised by family affects the person a lot. If he/she was brought up by a very racist family, they're likely to be very racist as well. The environment the person is raised in is very important as well. A person brought up in a culturally diverse neighborhood is less racist. There are many factors. Preventing any violence or discrimination should start at early age. It is very hard to change the way adults think, as they are very strong willed and stubborn in accepting change.

Answer 5

A racist is an insecure person...a person that needs to build
esteem for itself at the expense of others....prevention only
becomes reality when a 'racist' realizes its own value and discovers it is not worth a bit more than the one it
has prejudice over!

Answer 6

I personally am not racist. If people would quit judging others by their color and/or religion. It would be a much war free world., don't ya think.. I don't know why people are so full of hatred in this society. Its really sad.. I wish I knew the answer to prevent it myself..

Answer 7

No right answer to this question, but perhaps sometimes it's due to a bad experience someone might have had with a person of a different race in which caused that person to classify/stereotype.

Answer 8

Stereotype is the culprit. Racism is either passed down due to heredity, or it is born due to natural evil, or the evil that bad people influence us. To prevent it, get a whole group of people to ignore him/her until he/she gets rid of racist ways.

Answer 9

well, i'm not too fond of muslims, and that's because i'm from a country where non-muslims are discriminated against. Not to say i hate all of them, just that there is plenty of resentment there, and it carries over to muslims in general, even though my brain says that not all of them are like that. In my defense, living all your life somewhere where your debating team (which has been training its asses off) is disqualified because none of the 3 speakers are muslim, hits real hard. And that's only the start.

Answer 10

Racism is caused by ignorance and intolerance.

You defeat ignorance with knowledge, if everyone could see the beauties of each culture, it's traditions and way of life, then they would learn to respect and even love other ways of living. And with this new gained respect, you'll have tolerance. A person will be eager to see the various sides of the matter being coming to a judgement.

That's how I see it.