Peters 1

.Kerrigan Peters
Mrs. Thomas
UWRT 1102-017
3 December 2015
Reflection:
After each peer review period, I would go back and re-read my drafts and take into
account what my peers had said. Everyone in my group actually gave me really beneficial
feedback and it really helped me improve my thesis. Another thing that was really helpful was the
commentary taught me how to better my citations because I had difficulty using those correctly.
Through this commentary I realized that I needed to involve some extra research to lengthen my
paper and to better my content. Probably the only thing I am still not entirely confident on is my
conclusion but thats only because I didnt write one in my previous drafts so I havent received
feedback on this certain section.
Racism: Innate or Learned?
Answer me this, do we as people form our own opinions on other races or ethnicities, or
are we taught them? Sure we have our own opinions about things, but I doubt someone has ever
taken the time to sit down, and think how they actually formed said opinions. There is always a
little extra to why someone thinks a certain way. What constructs someones thought? Is it the
media? Their peers or family? Or did they form their thoughts all by themselves? Some even say
that racism is innate and part of everyones human nature. Is that true though? It is crazy to think
about how sometimes it is a mixture of all these things or maybe even just one. Who knows,
maybe it is something completely different.
How does one form their own opinions? Recently, Ive had some discussions about this
topic with many people to try and get their input on the subject. With that being said, my topic of
inquiry is, do we as people form our own opinions on other races and ethnicity or are we taught
them? Racism has always been a big problem in the world but how did it begin? More
importantly, how has it been maintained? Racism and discrimination against ethnicities and races

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has been an epidemic in society for thousands of years. Racism is defined as hatred or
intolerance of another race or other races, whereas discrimination is favoring or disliking a
person based on other groups and ideals. Whether it was back in the 1950s with segregation, or
the 21st century with the U.S.s discrimination against those with a Middle Eastern appearance
following September 11th, society has always had a form of in and out group. To this day, we
still carry a lot of old prejudices. In the past couple of months, there was terrorist attacks in Paris,
France. A terrorist group shot up restaurants, had suicide bombers, and held and killed hostages
in a local theater. Now minorities in France and other Europe countries are being victimized.
Now that there is a stereotype of a terrorist, if anyone and I mean completely innocent people
looks even remotely similar, they are now considered a terrorist. Innocent peoples lives are
being ruined because they dont look like theyre part of the in group. This needs to stop. We,
as human beings, should know better than to judge someone on their appearances.
A study done by Professor Gil Diesendruck, from the Bar-Ilan Universitys Psychology
Department in Israel, tested to see if racism was innate or taught. Diesendruck believes that this
behavior begins at a young age which helped him construct his research. In his study, he plays
with children and talks with them. He explained what his study entailed in this interview:
We told 4- and 5-year-olds a story about people who live someplace in the world and
think that dogs and cats are the same kind of thingWe asked the kids if these people
should be corrected and they said yes. Then we said that the same people also think that
Jews and Arabs are of the same kind, and here too the children thought it was a mistake
and that it was even more important to correct it. Because these are two groups that are
even more different (qtd. in Reisfield).
It was later revealed that the children felt more of a need to correct him on dividing race than
genders or professions. In another instance he said, We showed children a drawing of an Arab
boy and we said that he likes to play a game called Jimjam (a made-up name). We also showed

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them a Jewish girl, and we said she likes to play a game called Tibbits (another made-up name).
When we showed them an Arab girl and asked what she likes to play with, most of the children
inferred that she likes to play Jimjam. They deduced it on the basis of the ethnicity category
rather than going by the gender category. At the conclusion of this experiment, Professor
Diesendruck suggests that it is our primal instinct and we go with our gut or what we see to
categorize people. (Reisfieild)
Although Diesendruck concluded that discrimination is natural, I respectfully disagree. I
dont see how children can automatically form their own opinions on some races that they
havent even been personally exposed to. As I mentioned early on, when it came to 9/11 and the
attack on the twin towers, I noticed many Americans of Middle Eastern descent being judged and
looked at differently. The perfectly innocent were being called terrorists. While watching
documentaries this year on September 11th, my roommates and I began to discuss our stories of
what we remember from that day since we were only in kindergarten. Then, my roommate
Alyson said something that stuck with me. She talked about a time following that day when she
was at the airport about to go on a family trip. She was in line going through the security check
points and there was someone of Middle Eastern descent in front of her. Alyson told me that her
and someone she was with began talking to each other about how scared they were of that person
and how they felt uneasy about him riding on their plane. That seems like a normal fear for a
person during that time, right? Wrong. She was only in first or second grade. How did someone
so young already think that a person was bad without even knowing them? Did Alyson actually
decide for herself that the man in front of her was a terrorist or had society convinced her that
she should think this way?
I believe that with proper education and the showing of what is right and wrong, these
behaviors can be changed. Take, for instance, the experimental study, Educating Children to

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Decategorize Racial Groups, which was done to see if teaching children to decategorize people
and try to find other individuals as more similar, which in turn, will decrease racism and
discrimination. In this study, the experimenters created a PowerPoint presentation that consisted
of 25 slides teaching about decategorization. The PowerPoint was divided up into different
sections; the first 11 slides taught anthropology of different skin tones, the next four taught
biology and the genetic similarities of the different races, the final eight slides taught that people
came to America to escape prejudice and talked about what makes this country a great place
because of its ethnically diverse population.
Afterwards, the 65 students answered the Racial Decategorization scale. This basically
was a 30 question survey asking questions dealing with beliefs, stereotypes, feelings, and other
knowledge. With this inventory, the lower the score indicates that there was less categorization
which in other words means there was less racial discrimination. The results from this study
showed that the experimental group, the individuals that were given the presentation, scored
lower than the control group of students who had not been taught the lesson. This means that the
experimenters hypothesis had been correct. Perhaps education in decategorization might
outweigh the effect of family, friends, and the medias emphasis on racial categories and
differences. (Jones & Foley) This is important because it shows that if children are taught to
decategorize people then maybe racism and discrimination will lessen and people will become
more accepting. It also shows that this type of education has more of an affect than societies and
its influence on us to separate people into these said in and out groups.
It is normal for children, since they have not yet been exposed to many things, to take on
the ideals and beliefs of their families. There was an interview with a man, Jeremy Odell, who
lived in Mississippi during the 1950s in the heyday of segregation who now refers to himself as a
recovering racist. In 2015, he was asked to speak with a fifth grade class in Michigan who

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were learning about civil rights. He went through and talked about his memories from that time
and didnt really think much about it. During his discussion with these fifth graders he realized
that they were very insightful people and not just little kids. They have their own thoughts and
had a great understanding of the world around them. This made Odell realize that he too must
have been understanding of what was going on around him during those times of great racism.
Then why did he go along with it? This following quote is the major thing that stood out to me
while reading his article. This quote perfectly describes how racism is thrust upon the younger
generation.
But its not the villains we must reckon with. Our role models were people we loved and
trusted, those whom we allowed into our souls without question. Its an elderly white
neighbor whom I loved dearly, telling me that her black yardman, Joe, was not to be
referred to as a Mister. My schoolteacher who acted like it was the right thing, the
appropriate thing, the moral thing for her students to have nice schools and new
textbooks and a school bus, while the black kids went to class in dilapidated buildings,
used our castaway textbooks and walked to school regardless of the weather. It was my
preacher who told us to love black people, but that God wanted the blood of the white
race to remain pure. The kind clerk who attended to me, a child, the minute I walked into
his store while black adults remained waiting in line. (Odell)
This just shows that all of these people Odell mentioned contributed to him following these
1950s beliefs. His parents, school teacher, preacher, and all the other people that taught him this
was a normal way of living, were also taught this same way. It seems to be that racism and
discrimination sometimes is passed down because thats how those teaching were taught as well.

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But how can we make this cycle stop when theres something in todays world as
influential as the media. There are still books being published or old books that are still in
circulation that hold these racist and discriminatory themes. Jessica Valenti, columnist for The
Guardian, a popular newspaper website, wrote about a time that her daughter had returned home
from school after their library day holding the book Travels of Babar. She was shocked that a
book like this was being circulated in a childrens library. This book was full of highly offensive
and racist images towards black people. Valenti had enjoyed this book through her own
childhood although she hadnt realized then how offensive this book was and was very surprised
when her daughter had brought it home.
In her column, Valenti says, This isnt the first time Ive encountered racism in the
media to which my daughter has been exposed (Aristocats, Im looking at you), and Im sure it
wont be the last. This is important because it shows that media is full of racism. Valenti
understands that this wont be the last time she or her daughter is going to experience racism
from the media. Dont get me wrong, I understand that you cant censor every little thing thats
being published, but it was pretty surprising that books like that were in an elementary school
library. Children are already very impressionable beings who can be easily influenced by certain
things. They may think that the ideas given off from this book are the normal ideas felt by
everyone else, therefore, they should think this as well. According to Mahzarin Banaji, a
psychologist from Harvard University, children can grasp the concept of racism by age 3.
Its quite shocking really, but the gist of it is that 3- and 4-year-olds demonstrate the
same level and type of bias as adults. This tells us that children get it very, very quickly,
and that it doesnt require a mature level of cognition to form negative biases. (qtd. in
Burnett)
This is a quote from Banaji about what her recent research on child cognitive development
shows that children need to begin learning about the wrongfulness of racist and discriminatory

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tendencies. Jessica Valenti, the columnist, suggests taking a head on, proactive approach when
teaching your children about racism. Simply hiding them from anything that may show racism
wont help or teach them at all. According to Valenti, the best defense against racism is to arm
the children with information about what racism is really like. More importantly, they must be
taught that it is unacceptable.
I completely agree with everything that Valenti wrote about. People like to think that if
you ignore racism or pretend it doesnt exist, than it isnt a problem. That is definitely not the
case. That would be like sweeping all the dirt and dust on the floor under a rug. The floor is
technically clean but the filth is still there. Same goes for discrimination, its always going to be
there and we need to teach children about it so they can better prepare themselves. If theyre
taught about racism and discrimination, theyll be able to understand that its not okay and fight
against it whenever theyre exposed to it.
After reading this paper, I hope all of you understand that racism doesnt just happen, it is
not inborn. As much as one would like to think they think for themselves, it can be hard for
people to not follow the status quo. We are exposed to racism and discrimination by many things
such as, society, our relationships with others, the media and other publications. All of these
things teach and predispose us to believing certain opinions. The cycle of teaching these
behaviors to our children needs to be broken. Its wishful thinking to say that we need to stop
racism but something as simple as having a conversation with your children could help lessen the
occurrence of this judgment of others. It is up to us, the human race, to break this never ending
cycle.

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Work Cited
Burnett, James H., III. "Racism Learned." Boston Globe. Boston Globe Media, 10 June 2012.
Web. 6 Nov. 2015.
Jones, Lauriann M., and Linda A. Foley. "Educating Children to Decategorize Racial Groups."
Journal of Applied Social Psychology, Mar. 2003. Web. 20 Oct. 2015.
Odell, Jonathan. "I Am a Recovering Racist: I Was Somehow Taught Hate as a Gift of Love."
Saloncom RSS. Salon Media Group, 30 June 2015. Web. 27 Oct. 2015.
Reisfield, Smadar. "Are We Born Racist?" Haaretz.com. Haaretz Daily Newspaper, 8 June 2013.
Web. 18 Oct. 2015.
Valenti, Jessica. "You Can't Ignore Racism and Raise Anti-racist Children. You Have to Tackle It
Head-on." The Guardian : Race Issues. Guardian News and Media Limited, 12 Mar.
2015. Web. 9 Nov. 2015.