Racism part of nature or not?

Question

I remember one time i was talking with someone about racism and racists people. then i looked at some ants and it hit me. How come i never see the black ants hang out with the brown ants? The red ants are usually agressive and i never see any of them co exists but only within there own races( or species) of ants. Why is this? I also heard from a teacher that they are racists towards each other and tend to have wars againts each other. Does this mean that racism is just a natural survival instinct to perserve ones species. But shouldnt humans have evolved out of this? This confuses me.

Answer 1

NO NO NO. no.

OK. There is one race. The Human race. Thus, were are one species as you put it.

Racism is a social disease.

If a group of people think it is alright to use the N word when referring to Black people and there are children present. Those children will grow up thinking that using such language and discriminating against a person based on color is appropriate. Unless told otherwise.

I would like to say that if I was alive in America before slavery was outlawed. That I would be the one helping free the slaves behind their "masters" backs. But then again, say I am raised with a family that has slaves and I have always been taught that blacks were made for slavery and that is it. Then I might not have that compassion. For I may have been educated to look at such treatment as acceptable.

One must understand that a lot of the African tribes had sold their brothers and sisters to places like England and America. Being that these people came from tribes they may have not acquired the city life. Or the farming life for that matter. In many peoples eyes they considered these people to be animals. If you were to take an Indian from the Amazon and bring him to New York City. I bet people would have at least a passing thought like, "Wow, this guy acts like an animal."

Those whom are still racist are that way because their parents could not open their eyes. And thus, we still have racists.

This is an issue of society.
I would love to go more in depth, however, I have some work I got to get to.

LOVE, PEACE, and BANANAS!

Answer 2

As part of survival instinct animals are concrened about animals that look different. They would not know if the difrent animal was predator or a prey untill further investigation. This at one point could have applied to people. Is the dark skinned man a god or the green man a monster? At this time a large number of humans have realized that the differences in physicall apperence are un important. The problem is that humans are still evolving so some still oprate on the instinct that differnt is bad.

Answer 3

Ants, cats, birds, fish....whatever, it can be observed, but I believe any behavior is a learned behavior, not nature.
We can come straight from the womb and begin to take notice of differences between animals, people, objects, places and such, but it's merely observation.
Deciding a specific responce toward those differences other than pure curiosity and recognition however, we pick that up from the input we get from others as we grow, whether it be family, friends, television....other ants.
Perhaps there is more instict involved with species other than human as claimed by science, but if a mother bird does not force that baby out of the nest to force it to do what it's seen it's mother and father do many times, what would happen when it stepped out on it's own. People should be beyond this, yes, but knowing it, applying it to yourself, and changing the rest of the world is always going to be a battle

Answer 4

Racism is learned and taught, it is not something natural. If a blind man lived life do you think he would be racist towards everyone? As we grow and learn, it depends on who raised us, and our up-bringing and also life experiences. These are all learned and taught.

The reason why black ants and red ants don't interact is because they are of different species. Red ants a lot of times are army ants and are for attacking an defending the colony. Its just like in real life the police has different duties than farmers in life. Generally they don't interact and they are there for different purpose. This is not being racist, this is just the ants doing their job. Now there are different colonies of ants and the reason they fight is just like humans. It is either for defense or for expanding their colony. Its not being racist, its their natual order of survival.

Humans are not born racist, they are taught it by others or by experience.

Answer 5

Race is not a biological product but a social product. People have been traveling, raping, intermarrying, or intermixing for thousands of years.

If race is color, we can examine that no two people are the same skin color and that color gradiants are based on social opinion. If race is ancestry, if we go back far enough we are all from everywhere according to lineage (thanks to the traveling and mixing, etc.)

Ants and race are a false analogy, in that the ants aren't discriminating based on color, rather they are territorial based on who was born from what queen to what anthill. I'm not sure if ants can even see in color or not. I have never checked on that.

Also, races aren't different species. ^_~

If racism were biological, all biological beings would be racist.

Answer 6

What seems natural to me is to have a certain mistrust of "outsiders". Racism is built on that natural mistrust, probably wouldn't exist without it... but in no way whatsoever is racism itself "part of nature". Who you see as an outsider, to what extent you mistrust them, and what you do about your mistrust--all of those things are socially defined.

An example that comes to mind is the racism that appeared in Rawanda against Hutus and Tutsis. There was little hatred between those two groups, if they even existed as two separate groups at all, before the Belgians came and emphasized physical differences, and gave more power to one group over another. They lived in relative harmony, and then with a social change, developed a violent and absolute racial hatred. But seen by someone outside of Rawanda, the racial perception of a Hutu or Tutsi would be EXACTLY the same. What I am trying to say is that, as a white person from the United States, I would see them both as black Africans and being told that they are actually "Hutu" or "Tutsi" would mean nothing to me at all. To me, this proves beyond any doubt that racism is not an inevitable product of nature, but rather, is a social phenomenon.

Answer 7

Racism may stem from human in group/out group psychology. Remember, we lived in small bands for 98% of hominid history. A stranger may have meant trouble, or just quite different from people who were closely related to you. You can see how leaders have exploited this tendency among humans for all our recorded history. As all human traits, it is on average and normally distributed; so you get varying degrees of expression.

Answer 8

Humans have the capacity to reason, not ants nor dogs..they rely on instincts. You see..we humans have been wrongly programed..white is better than black, yellow is more intelligible than brown..got my point? If you just take off your skin and my skin, you'll see that there is no difference..we're all biologically identical. Your brain is wired like my brain. Your heart pumps the same amount of blood as mine does. We're all brothers and sisters..we all came from the same soil. :)

Answer 9

I think racism is something that we learn not necessarily from our parents but from society. We just have to fight all the negative feedback and try to see everyone as human beings.

Answer 10

no offense: you are a racist man u are like really racist, byour trying to use yahoo awnsers because ur racist and wanna c if other people have the same feelings because ur afraid a black guys ganna kick ur fat *** in if he hears u
Soooo just keep u mouth shut and be afraid to talk ur racist attitudes towards people america is done being racist barracks ganna win the next election