Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Racism: Belief System, Attitude or Behavior?

Simply getting rid of the action didn't get rid of the racism

by Martin

We all experience. A glance here. A slur there. A joke. A stereotype. It's racism. We can find examples of it all over our world. But what is it exactly? Many people know what racism is but they don't know if it is an attitude, behavior, or belief system. People have different opinions. My opinion is that people think that racism an attitude, but I think it's more than that.

To me racism is belief syste. After all, how would racist people know what kind of race not to like? It has to begin with a belief. They think that the race they don't like are bad or not good enough. Not all the people might not think that. Racism is kind of an attitude and behavior. Racist people act and behave differently around the race they don't like. Still, it all begins with an initial belief about another race. It might be a misguided idea, but it's still a belief.

Racist people behave differently around the race they don't like. They might walk away if they're close to them. They may start talking to their friends and make jokes about them. You see this happen everyday. Joe Arpio treats immigrants different than non immigrants. This is what I mean about people behaving different. It would be easy to say, "See, it's a behavior." But stopping the behavior won't stop racism. We're not dogs to be trained. We're people with deep beliefs that influence actions.

People that are racist to other cultures should stop. They might cause some huge problems. They might get killed or something. People have killed because people have insulted their race. This has happen before. They just take everything personal. Their behavior is good when their with their race, but when they are with another race their attitude is different. So, the behavior goes down, because the attitude went down. But the attitude went down when there was a bad belief system.

Racism is a belief system that has existed for years. No one can figure out how to stop it. Everyone is trying to persuade people to not be racist. But we focus on behaviors. We say, "Don't say this" or "Don't do this" or "Don't act this way." However, it needs to begin with, "What do you believe deep down inside and how can that change?" Can you figure out a way to stop it?

Photo Credit
Public Domain Photograph

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