Racism is learned.

Children are like sponges, they absorb everything in their path. Studies have shown that between the ages of 0 and 5 years the brain grows and develops at a critical rate. It takes in more information in between these years than any other.

From the moment of birth, an infant is making connections with the world. Racism is learned like anything else in the world. A mother and father have a large influence on how a child deals with other people socially. Most of peoples social experience start in the home.

A person who is racist has been taught to be that way. I don’t believe that someone just is a racist to be racist. Children listen to how there mom and dad talk about others. Most of the time, adults use hateful language around children unaware of how they are affecting them. Children will often repeat what there parents say. This is where it starts. They offend someone and they might think it’s ok because mommy and daddy said it was. It is the responsibility of the parents to admit to there mistakes and correct there children

I believe this takes years of a persons parents or main influence telling them that other races are inferior to there’s. They are taught to be racist, by what family does around them. If you ask someone why they don’t like black people. That person might say ” Well, my mom and dad tell me that they are bad because they are black.” They might go back to some family member telling them to stay away from them.

The media has so much to do with racism. Negative racial stereotypes are perpetuated this way. When you turn on the television certain races are depicted in more negative ways than others. Some racial groups tend to commit crimes more often than others. Seeing this on television, makes it seem that this is all there is to a race. In reality this is only one aspect of any race. All racial groups commit crimes. All racial groups have problems. No one is above anyone else. There are many black CEO’s and CFO’s in the world. White people sell drugs and have children out of wed lock too. There are black “baby daddies” and “white baby daddies”. I went to college and I knew three white girls who became pregnant while they dorm-ed. None of them were married. Some came from upper middle class homes and others came from lower class. Not all Latinos like chili.

The source of racism is in the families. If you teach your child that his race is better than another, you are teaching him to be a racist. Keep that in mind.