Children tend to look to their parents or piers for some kind of moral guidance so most negative views about someones race or colour can in someways be attributed to what their parents or grandparents views may well be. In many cases young children tend to look at older people as being truth full and factual when they speak, a child looks at the world through different eyes and cannot see the flaws and hidden agendas behind some peoples comments, their lack of experience with day to day life means they can sometimes put far to much trust in other peoples views and adopt them as their own.

As people grow older they tend to form groups and feel the need to be accepted for example you have Goth’s, punks, bikers and they all seem to form there own groups with their own identities. This same principle can be applied to race with most older children or teenagers forming groups based on ethnicity for example you may have a classroom and in many cases people of similar ethnic backgrounds may sit together and form their own group and as this starts to happen people start to view themselves in a different way and social barriers start to occur. As people start going out more barriers can also be created through having different lifestyles for example different religious beliefs, this can mean some going out to bars while others don’t drink and go elsewhere for example Muslims this means that they will start to go to places with people who act and believe in the same things as they themselves do. Neighbourhoods tend to form through this process with many areas becoming either black or white or even based around certain religions, as one group becomes dominant the other tends to feel out of place and starts to move elsewhere. As this happens resentment can build as people feel their area is changing from the place they used to know and they feel in someway they are being forced to change with it. Language barriers can also cause distrust and resentment as people around you start to speak different languages. For example if you walk into a room and two people look at you and whisper you automatically think they are talking about you because all people tend to carry with them an air of insecurity. Another main reason why people may show racism is to fit in with people around them who may harbour racist beliefs for fear of being considered as an outsider and an enemy of that groups beliefs, people in general want to be liked and accepted and this may mean they don’t express their own opinions instead they adopt the attitude of the majority in order to fit in. People also have a tendency to blame others for there problems instead of looking closer to home.

Although racism can be taught life experience is a process you learn naturally and over time the character of the person to understand himself and the world around him will be the ultimate decider.