roots of racism
Kids learn everything from their parents. If our parents speak in a certain dialect, we, as very young children, develop the same way of speaking. The same goes for racism. According to Mahzarin Banaji, a renowned Harvard University psychologist, race preferences develop and become accepted embraced in children at the age of 3 in the matter of days. Days. In Song of Solomon, Guitar Bains hates white people. He associates sweets with white people, and it “makes him sick.” In fact, he doesn't even like to smell it. Even the brief mention of a baked Alaska makes him throw up. He emerges after his little episode with eyes “teary from the effort of dry heaving,” and suggests that he and Milkman get some weed, since “that's one thing [he] can have” (Morrison 62). Why is this Guitar’s reaction to something most people would be happy to eat? Because it makes him “think of dead people. And white people.” When asked how long he's been like this, Guitar explains how his dad has been killed in a sawmill, and his white boss gave his family candy as his condolences. From then on, Guitar’s hatred only grew as he aged into an adult.
In Banaji’s study, he examined how children identified various faces, in different skin tones from very light tan to brown as happy or angry. The result? “Without prompting,” the majority of the white children group described the angry faces as “black” and the happy faces as “white.” The conductors of the study then swapped the black faces with Asian faces, the same results occurred: the Asian faces were described as angry, and the white faces as happy once again. The same experiment was conducted with the black children group, who showed no bias towards either races.
Interesting.
It can then be inferred that the majority of the white group have been mainly exposed to their same race and culture throughout their years of living. You can also assume that the parents of the black children participants taught their kids to not be prejudiced. However, even if that was not the case, it wouldn't be too late for the child’s mindset to change within their teenage years. Regardless of whether or not prejudice was taught in one’s home, if a child frequently observes both his own race and other races interacting as equals, and finds company in diverse friend groups, he or she will eventually grow out of his/her parents’ influence.
In Banaji’s study, he examined how children identified various faces, in different skin tones from very light tan to brown as happy or angry. The result? “Without prompting,” the majority of the white children group described the angry faces as “black” and the happy faces as “white.” The conductors of the study then swapped the black faces with Asian faces, the same results occurred: the Asian faces were described as angry, and the white faces as happy once again. The same experiment was conducted with the black children group, who showed no bias towards either races.
Interesting.
It can then be inferred that the majority of the white group have been mainly exposed to their same race and culture throughout their years of living. You can also assume that the parents of the black children participants taught their kids to not be prejudiced. However, even if that was not the case, it wouldn't be too late for the child’s mindset to change within their teenage years. Regardless of whether or not prejudice was taught in one’s home, if a child frequently observes both his own race and other races interacting as equals, and finds company in diverse friend groups, he or she will eventually grow out of his/her parents’ influence.
Comments
Post a Comment