Is racism an inherent human trait?

[One quick question...]

Just curious as to what you think on the matter. I personally think it is, but as with all traits can be reduced by education and training.

What do you think?

[L33tz]

Originally Posted by Angry Blue Bird of Death

No it's based on life experiences, the people who are enablers are ignorant.

coming from you this is weird.

[Flex Rigid]

Why do you think it is?

[Sargeras0000]

For racism to be an inherent human characteristic, race would have to be an inherent human characteristic. Do you believe this to be true?

[Death of Hope]

I've researched the subject, and I think that certain behaviours that we would call "racism" are inherent, whether they have to do with actual race or not.

Trusting, loving, and feeling closer to people who look more like you seems to be inherent. This doesn't require "race" to exist, just simple genetics--it's positive in an evolutionary sense to protect one's family. A great difference in skin colour and facial features is a good indicator that someone's not from your family or tribe. I think this translates into trusting and wanting to befriend people of one's own race. This can certainly be conditioned away--just look at all the black men wanting white women, and white women loving their biracial kids.

The second thing I've studied is the other race effect--there's evidence that we're able to identify members of our own race more readily than other races. I think this fits with evolution, too, and it translates, these days, into people not being able to identify their attackers, rapists, etc. in a line-up. I'm not sure if we can be conditioned out of this one or not.

[nutsack]

Originally Posted by Sargeras0000

For racism to be an inherent human characteristic, race would have to be an inherent human characteristic. Do you believe this to be true?

Race is obviously inherent as it is genetic.

It's natural to fear that which is different and unknown, and to relate more with what you're familiar with. Inherent racism disappears when ignorance disappears. There are however other forms of racism.

[Ambient]

Stereotyping and generalising is easy as it is the slothful position. And I believe sloth is the defualt position... but not the constitutional position. Is racism inherant human trait?

I think so, but it is one that can be overcome; just like all inclination and tendency. RESPECT IS NOT GENETIC!

[Sargeras0000]

Originally Posted by nutsack

Race is obviously inherent as it is genetic.

It's natural to fear that which is different and unknown, and to relate more with what you're familiar with. Inherent racism disappears when ignorance disappears. There are however other forms of racism.

'Race' is merely a term that has been tacked onto an extremely far-reaching set of genetic traits and conditions. That term is certainly not inherent.

What I was questioning however, was the idea of intrinsic race as a factor of perception and an outgrowth of the visible differences between races.

[Dog]

When cats and mice are raised separately and a mouse is later placed in a cat's cage, the cat will eat the mouse. When they are raised together, the cats never eat the mice. The fact that humans are (supposedly) much smarter than cats makes it all the more compelling that people are actually stupid enough to be racist, or to believe that the races can't be together.

Humans do have automatic tendencies to categorize and generalize, but the benefit of being the smartest animals on the planet is that we are all capable of correcting idiotic, irrational thoughts, if we have the proper mental motivation. Racists are ultimately so out of laziness. It's easier to just scream that you hate niggers and spics than to think critically.

What I was questioning however, was the idea of intrinsic race as a factor of perception and an outgrowth of the visible differences between races.

This is an interesting question. I'd say the opinions of interracial children provide compelling evidence that the answer is no, as many (perhaps all) of them seem not to notice race or care about the racial categories of their parents until society points it out to them.

[L33tz]

It is definitely a made up cultural thing. If people don't divide themselves and give into peer pressure it wouldn't happen. It is made up I assure you.

[Ambient]

Originally Posted by PizzaNazi

Humans do have automatic tendencies to categorize and generalize, but the benefit of being the smartest animals on the planet is that we are all capable of correcting idiotic, irrational thoughts, if we have the proper mental motivation. Racists are ultimately so out of laziness. It's easier to just scream that you hate niggers and spics than to think critically.

Then the question becomes, is natural inclination unto ease (lazyness).?

[Former_Member]

Originally Posted by One quick question...

Just curious as to what you think on the matter. I personally think it is, but as with all traits can be reduced by education and training.

What do you think?

Yes I think it is.

I'm sure some people lack it, but on the whole it's part of the evolutionary will to survive. Tolerating other races goes against our survival instincts.

That doesn't mean it's right though. We are civillised now, though it's never 'right'; human beings no longer have an excuse to be racist. If you don't have the strength of character to realise racism is fucking bullshit, then you are an idiot. At this stage of social development, humanity really should have the necessary ethical understanding to overwrite it's inherent racism.

People will attempt to justify it through being natural, despite it being a well-know logical fallacy ('appeal to nature')...and they deserve the fucking boot.

[Firemind]

Originally Posted by One quick question...

Just curious as to what you think on the matter. I personally think it is, but as with all traits can be reduced by education and training.

What do you think?

Why the fuck do you guys keep talk about humans? They were bred out 20000 years ago. And the trait is not racism, but ingrained hypocrisy and mental retardation.

[SHARP]

Originally Posted by One quick question...

Just curious as to what you think on the matter. I personally think it is,

I think you're wrong, people aren't born racist, that's something they become after having been exposed to idiots.

Originally Posted by One quick question...

but as with all traits can be reduced by education and training.

Couldn't agree more, it is possible in most cases to make people understand that pigmentation doesn't really say anything about superiority, unless we're talking specific situations in specific environmental climates, provided they haven't got the intellectual characteristics normally associated with that found in a bag of wet saw dust...

Originally Posted by One quick question...

What do you think?

I can't see how it could possibly be an inherited trait, check out the definition of the word "racism"...

When a person is born they're like a blank page in a book full of blank pages, with every day the person lives, another page is filled with text, and the subsequent pages will be filled with text based on the text already written (or, more precisely "written from the point of view held by the author"), with the addition of what the person experienced the day in question.
As the book comes closer and closer to the last page, less and less deviations from the path the writing has taken, is possible.
That's why young children are so impressionable, and why it's so difficult to "teach an old dog new tricks".

That's just a short way to explain what psychologists would spend ages on explaining, but it should clarify that we aren't born with a set of opinions or beliefs, the people we are today, are the results of the lives we've lived, but nothing more...

[Sargeras0000]

Originally Posted by Firemind

They were bred out 20000 years ago

wut

[Firemind]

Originally Posted by Sargeras0000

wut

Oh, it's nothing... /whistles

[Mr. White]

yes, now that i think about it, you are right.

That is all, /thread

[nutsack]

Originally Posted by SHARP

Couldn't agree more, it is possible in most cases to make people understand that pigmentation doesn't really say anything about superiority, unless we're talking specific situations in specific environmental climates, provided they haven't got the intellectual characteristics normally associated with that found in a bag of wet saw dust...

Pigmentation isn't the only difference between races

[SHARP]

Originally Posted by nutsack

Pigmentation isn't the only difference between races

...And no one said it was...

It is however, the most obvious difference between the variations of the species Homo sapiens - and as I assume you aren't a member of the previously described group "idiots", I'll also assume you're aware that the other differences besides skin pigmentation that sets us apart, are irrelevant in a discussion about racism as the main focus is on pigmentation and not dimensions and/or properties of physical features like the height of a person, the fat percentage commonly found in people of a specific descent, the differences in cranial features.

Social and cultural differences are equally irrelevant, as neither are caused by pigmentation, which is the topic at hand when all is said and done.
At this point some idiot thinking he "really got me" might jump in and start rambling on about how albinos are occasionally killed out of fear in a few (if that many) under developed shitholes in Africa, and use that as an argument that it does "have something to do with pigmentation", but miserably fail to correctly interpret the evidence laid before him, and totally miss the fact that shit like that happens out of fear of an imaginary threat, and that the common opinion in those parts of the world is for the most part dictated by, yes, you guessed it; "idiots", or someone who's got an interest in keeping people on the lowest possible level of education, to avoid losing their position of power.

Yes, I am perfectly aware, but what puzzles me is that anyone would deem it necessary to point this out to me, after all I do mod a forum where the staff members should have at the very least a basic understanding of how biology works.

[Former_Member]

You're a decent guy SHARP.

Though I disagree with you, and think racism is inherently part of us as an evolutionary survival instinct...I share the same views on it with you, and still see everything you say about it's origins as valid.

[L33tz]

Originally Posted by Ryan1711

Yes I think it is.

I'm sure some people lack it, but on the whole it's part of the evolutionary will to survive. Tolerating other races goes against our survival instincts.

That doesn't mean it's right though. We are civillised now, though it's never 'right'; human beings no longer have an excuse to be racist. If you don't have the strength of character to realise racism is fucking bullshit, then you are an idiot. At this stage of social development, humanity really should have the necessary ethical understanding to overwrite it's inherent racism.

People will attempt to justify it through being natural, despite it being a well-know logical fallacy ('appeal to nature')...and they deserve the fucking boot.

Tolerating groups of people and racism is not the same. To hate one group for whatever reason is totally different than racism, although it may lead to racism. If you saw 10,000 BC thats a good example. Was the whiter mountain guy racist towards the darker people? No.


I assure you it is bullshit.


want another example. look at a chair for example. Does this non-living object care who uses it? Does a animal care whose its owner is? Does a child? Let's say for example an alien race invaded earth and wiped out a large portion of humanity. Would you give two shits if your fellow brother(yes were all in this together) was black, white, whatever?

[SHARP]

Originally Posted by Ryan1711

You're a decent guy SHARP.

Thanks, I've noticed you as well, you come off as someone I'd have a chat with over a beer or two.

Originally Posted by Ryan1711

Though I disagree with you, and think racism is inherently part of us as an evolutionary survival instinct...I share the same views on it with you, and still see everything you say about it's origins as valid.

I wouldn't say "racism" per definition is an inherited trait, but as is obvious to everyone there is a tendency amongst just about any "race" I can think of, to reproduce within their own "race" (fuck I hate that word, it isn't even half way scientifically accurate, but meh), but I'm fairly certain the reason is that we tend to like what we can easily recognize and are familiar with, which is a general trait everyone shares irrespective of what "race" we might belong to (as far as I know that's a view shared by the global anthropological society so I'll go out on a limb and assume I'm right, just in case anyone was wondering).

I'm not saying that's a bad thing, it's simply the way we are and the reason for this circumstance lies so deeply buried in our, as well as any other living but potentially inter-breeding species genetic coding that it's an unavoidable factor.
Oh, and I kind of like the concept of diversity in by far most of its forms, with all that encompasses.
So, I can't really see that as "racism" as it isn't a conscious decision in regards to what is inferior and what is superior, based on opinions that rests on a foundation of fear of what is different, or on excessive exposure to "idiots".

Just to put it short for the idiots, -"you're an idiot because you've been exposed to too many idiots, or because you were exposed to idiots before you were old enough to understand how the world works, your chance to break free is to forget your prejudices and judge people by their actions and statements, exclusively".

[Headspin]

Well if it is inherent or not makes no difference, what can we do about the issue is what we should be focusing. Oh come now I joke I joke I kid I kid. Tell me how racists of white flavor would prefer to listen to Eminem over Biggie Smalls? And how many of them would say he is just a wigger because the ignorant bloke thinks rap came from the blacks in the first place?

Anyway, it definitely has to do with growing surroundings and environment, and also the child who doesn't know any better listens to his father say hateful things about other races... how would he know any better? A child is usually born of purity (in my beliefs anyway) so reacting the same way a parent figure reacts is more of a trait that is acquired.

Fear of the unknown could possibly have a large role in what I said above also.

So no, I don't believe it is inherited.