Racism has been one of the most discussed topics in the history of the world. And the discussion is still as hot as ever. So, why are people so racists? And are they really racists? Well, is everyone racists? And is there a vaccine for racism?
To start with, what the hell is race? Biologically speaking, race doesn’t exist. It is more of a social construct. There is less than 0.1% genetic variance between two so-called ‘races’. On the other hand, there might be more genetic variance between people in the same race depending on several other factors. So, how did this concept of racism come into being? Are we inherently racists? Was the concept of racism stuck into our brains by birth?
According to Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton, a professor of psychology & director of the Relationships & Social Cognition Lab at U.C. Berkeley, Racism is predominantly about nurture than nature. Racism, according to the written history was first apparent in the Spanish regions in the early 1500s and was linked to the idea of ‘pure blood’. This same idea was further chased by many other ideologies and cults. Well, to be frank, it was quite an unscientific thing to pursue. If the world was a homogenous group of people, that is genetical, the extensive in-breeding would have caused complications of all sorts.
Even while associating racism with ‘nurture’, it is also true that the core idea of racism is baked deep into the society that is almost impossible to block its learning. And to make things harder, children are excellent learners and observers. They can pick up the subtle changes in tonality and postures and consciously or unconsciously this idea of racism will grow within them as well.
Looking at the larger picture, the race isn’t just the problem, prejudices are also generated on the basis of religion, caste and literally any kind of separation one can think of. Just think of an IPL match (for no-Indians, just look it up in Google). People who support different teams will instantaneously grow apart and develop a kind of competence and hatred of some kind, and people in the same group tend to come closer and develop a kind of bond. This in-group out-group dynamic is the same thing that works in racism as well. But, an IPL match doesn’t inject the individuals with a long-term notion of groups and therefore it hardly leads to anything bad. Whereas, it is different in the case of race. There always would be some indicators to identify one’s race. This continuously gives out a sense of group. In simple words, ‘since he doesn’t look like us, he isn’t one of us’.
Racism is quite a complex topic when it comes to psychology. There are factors like stranger anxiety that might contribute to the growth of racism. There has been extensive research in the area and we have obtained some very interesting findings. One of which is that most of us are racists, even if we don’t explicitly believe that we are. The IAT or Implicit Association Test is a test commonly used to identify implicit prejudices. I am not a big believer in its validity. However, with such a large number of studies and identical results, it is fair to assume that the test might be true to some degree. Some studies reveal that even people from the same race hold prejudices against that race.
So, how to solve this ‘colourful problem’? Well, we can’t deny the fact that races and religions exist, what we can do is treat them as part of the same group. The thing about prejudices is that they act as loops. You might believe that a person is a criminal just because he is ‘x’ (if you have assigned a ‘race or religion’ to ‘x’, you know what it means), and then you treat him as a criminal until he eventually becomes a criminal. This has been especially true in the case of African Americans. So, how to break the loop? Just go out, expand your friend zone, fill it with people of all races, religions and caste. And you will see that we are not that different- the colour of our skins might differ, the languages we speak, the clothes we wear, even the shape of our faces- all might vary. But we are all humans. And scientifically speaking that is the only race there is- the human race.
