Is Racism alive and well?

[EddieDingo]

Here's the new song by Randy Newman:

[darroll]

You should be able to pick the people that you like.

Being forced to like someone just lasts until the impetus is gone.

 

[DannyO]

I can't count the number of times that I've heard someone say something like "people aren't innately racist -- children are taught to be racist by their parents, schools, society, etc".

Well, I'm here from the library to tell you that actually isn't the case.  People are innately racist.  There have been repeated studies showing that there are strong cognitive mechanisms deeply wired into the human brain that are triggered by people who look "different" (where "different" doesn't necessarily mean "different from me", but usually means "different from the people I usually see").  Perhaps at some point in the history of our species, being able to tell a member of one tribe from another was really, really important to survival.

The first step to overcoming this innate racism is accepting that it's always going to be there.