Nutella is Yum

Racism #2

It seems to me that a good deal of racism occurs as a second hand experience. Often our values and views are formed at a young age from what we hear at home and from our friends rather than from personal experience where more often than not we find that people are not so very different. Our parents and friends have a major influence on our lives and the opinions we form particularly when we are quite young and often impressionable. If these people whose approval we seek express views that are racist chances are that we too may initially form similar views or even carry those views into adulthood. This experience can be magnified if we are isolated from the people being denigrated. It seems to me that it is easy to believe the worst about people from a distance and generalize about their “faults” or “inferiority” when you have little knowledge of how they really think and live or any contact with them as individuals. It seems to me that it is easy to demonize people at a distance or regard them as inferior especially if you are part of a system that has institutionalized such a view as much of the South had towards African Americans prior to the Civil War.