Mon Jan 20, 2014 12:26 PM
Racism has Deeper Roots
I’ve been around racism for most of my life growing up. It runs centuries through my southern ancestry. Growing up in a poor and mostly uneducated family though, I was perplexed when it was inferred that we were better than them, or that they were inferior or dumb. We lived in the same projects, had similar wages and lifestyles, went to separate churches that preached the same things, and shared the same low class behaviors. Somehow, because we spoke with different accents, were quieter and not as outspoken, drank different kinds of alcohol, had different shades of color, and listened to different music – we were just too different.
When I see ignorance and low class behavior from anyone, I don’t excuse it as an act of frustration with society or one another. Instead, I see a person acting the way their dysfunctional parents or friends taught them how to act. It’s too easy and so tempting to say that it’s part of their culture, but that groups them into a larger group, typically by race or income level, and all of the good in that larger group are forgotten. Should we then associate the white people on Duck Dynasty with other white celebrities?
I don’t have white guilt. White guilt serves no useful purpose and doesn’t make anyone feel any better, except for the person declaring to anyone that will listen that they are NOT RACIST! It’s an attempt by some white people who don’t really know how to relate or just be friendly with black people to ease social tension. The anxiety inside them builds up the real social tension. They just need to let that go, relax, stop putting their selves on that I-AM-NOT-RACIST pedestal, and just talk to people as if they were friendly neighbors.
I have an idea of what racism is really about. It’s just an idea and nothing to get upset about if you don’t agree with it. Still, I think it’s worth exploring since people have been talking and debating and going on and on about it as if it were the core issue. We’ve dug so far into that core and we’re still mostly empty handed.
Biological evolution made us fear encounters with anything different from us. Wild animals or other tribes could be a threat and attack us. That fear was coded into our DNA, made part of our instincts, and causes our stress hormones to rise. We now have so many borders protected by law, fences, locks, houses and cars with security alarms, sometimes carrying concealed weapons just in case, societies of law and order, and protection by the military from foreign invaders. Has that made us feel much safer? Maybe, but in the course of our daily interactions at school, the supermarket, and the bus commute, we hide ourselves by not interacting. We just don’t want to engage a potentially deranged crazy person or someone who will turn an average day into a bad day. That smart phone is really a smart wall.
Those same instincts that cause us not to interact with anyone and everyone get even more pronounced when we encounter people who are NOT LIKE US. By the way, “us” becomes a looser term if you find yourself to be the only one of a different color in a neighborhood or community, and stress tends to stay high when there is no “us.” On the other side, when a different person comes along into our community, evolution has instilled into our lizard brain that this new person is a potential threat to our survival. Not only that, but our mammalian brain has this instinctual impression that different people can upset the order of the pack (or social order).
Feeling secure in the status quo and not accustomed to change, conservatives are threatened not just by blacks, not just by liberals who want social change, but even young people with new ideas. Why? Change can be a potential threat to the social order, a perceived social harmony, and everyone’s status. The more socially structured a society is with its different caste levels (such as a kingdom or theocracy), the more paranoid and reactionary it will be to change that could potentially upset the social order. When social order is damaged or threatened, a person’s social status is in jeopardy. When their social status is in jeopardy, so is everything else: their finances, family life, and even their personal safety. There may not even be a real threat, but instincts perceive it as a threat, stress increases, and tempers flare.
So now you should understand why hearing the words “change you can believe in” by the first black president caused so many people (who thought to be patriotic) to start talking about raising arms against the government.
#racism #mlk #evolution #society #socialpsychology
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