Issue Of The Week II Fall 2011-2012: The Darker The Skin, The Greater The Discrimination

I think it is very sad to see children of such ages to already have the idea that people of darker skin tones are inferior. Something in the children's lifestyles are reinforcing such thoughts. Maybe it's the parents, or the media, or the influence of a friend. As children get older, even with proper education, they are going to gravitate toward what they are comfortable with. Unfortunately, certain neighborhoods are predominately a certain race and there is little diversity. If children do not see their parents, teachers or peers interact with a diverse group, how can children learn tolerance and equality?

I agree with the comment above. My personal experience as a white male who was isolated from diversity for much of my life left me less able to confidently interact with peers of different races. As I grew, I found myself called to ministry, especially to those of different backgrounds. Though well-intentioned, I was awkward at best, probably better characterized as culturally unaware. Through the patience of some wonderful friends and some amazing cross-cultural experiences, I have been able to better understand racial biases not only imbedded in society, but those that have been subconsciously impressed on me.

Along with the commenter before me, I think this disturbing trend can be curbed by children watching parents, teachers, and others interact with diverse groups. But beyond just watching interactions, I think those mentoring and molding young people must be acutely aware of their own biases, then explain them to the next generation. This is not to be used as an excuse, but rather as a warning. For example, it's not enough to simply refrain from using ethnic slurs or telling racist jokes to your children. Instead, explaining why that is not only inappropriate but harmful to all parts of society would do a better job of training a child to recognize and reject racial discrimination.

I believe that without some kind of education or experience that teaches otherwise, the beliefs we learn in our youth stay with us. As we get older, these preferences absolutely follow us, though they change form. I am white and I was raised, like so many others, to believe that I was color-blind. This gave me the typical view on affirmative action as a form of racism and that idea that everyone is equal and it doesn’t matter what your race is.

I’ve become more aware over the last year or so that race matters. It’s clear when considering these types of studies that there is something going on, no matter how badly want to believe otherwise. The disparity in income, infant mortality, education, and access to healthcare are easy to ignore if you’re not being negatively impacted by these problems.

Besides talking to children about race and realizing that race matters, the most important thing that can be done is to show people that systems exist. Recently I was watching a speech given by Frances E. Kendall and she points out that later generations are not aware of the existence of systems. Too often I hear people say things like, “is it really even an issue anymore?” Without this awareness, there can be no concern over unequal benefits and harms. Without concern, there will be no change. Understanding the influences and drawbacks of systems can help convince people that there is, in fact, a problem. Raising awareness is the first step in making a difference.

It is a sad state of things when little children are already showing signs of prejudice, but I can’t say I am surprised. First of all, I think “parenting” these days is little more than handing children technology and media, you know, to help them “learn” and be ready to enter a technology-saturated culture. And what do you they in most media? White protagonists and stereotypes of minorities, if they appear at all. So children are growing up interacting more with technology and media than with real people, getting to know race and ethnicity only as they appear on screens, which end up being single-dimension portrayals. And I have to admit that I doubt most children are growing up seeing much diversity among the real people that they know, either: I know the communities and schools that I grew up in were pretty homogenous.

People tend to want to live in places where the people are similar to themselves because it makes them feel “safer.” If the people look like you, they must also have the same values, right? That makes them predictable. People who look different may have different values, worldviews, cultures, and are therefore unpredictable and “unsafe.” And who wants to raise their children in a community where they feel unsafe? If we want children to associate positive attributes with people different from themselves, they need their families to show that interacting with those different people is safe, comfortable, and even enjoyable; parents need to directly talk to their children about the value of interacting with different people; and the media needs to put more characters from minority groups with complex personalities in TV shows and movies for children.

If we are going to have a society that has no prejudice, we need to focus on raising children who will not be prejudiced. It will take time, and probably several generations, before we live in a world where prejudice is not even a passing thought, but it will never come if we don’t start NOW with these children and the younger ones who have the chance to learn to love all people from the very beginning.

This article portrays the inequalities that are among African Americans and Lations in our country. The darker you are, the worse your living conditions are. People with darker skin tend to have less access to healthcare, and are more in debt. Even if they attend school and apply themselves in the workforce, they still struggle to make ends' meet. This is because African Americans especially were kept down by white people in America. While some whites were discriminated against, discriminiation was more prominient among African Americans. For example, slavery prevented them from excelling politically, socially, or economically. Although slavery was abolished years ago, it still affects them today. Slavery has had a lasting footprint on African Americans economically and socially. It prevented them from being accepted in society.
I think it is horrible that white children claim lighter skin people are prettier and smarter, while darker skin people are uglier, meaner, and dumber. This racial inequality and stereotypes need to be eliminated in order to make America a country that stands on the value of equality. This shows that whites still consider themselves the dominant and better race. These children probably learned this notion from their parents, their upbringing, and exposure to other white children whose parents may be prejudiced. As a result, white children who are exposed to these racial inequalities and stereotypes will not broaden their horizons. They will remain secluded from blacks, instead of bonding with them. I think whites and blacks should come together and be friends, regardless of color. Color of one's skin should not be a factor in determining who to be friends with. America needs to learn this. This cycle can be broken if Americans are taught by their parents and teachers to respect all people, regardless of race. Also, public policies need to eliminate the large gap between white and black peoples' income. African Americans need the opportunity to increase their status and income, with the elimination of racism. Prejudice in the workforce is used to keep blacks from getting ahead in society. I noticed in the article that unemployment rate among blacks and whites, and well as black and white teens, varied drastically. Blacks usually suffered from unemployment more than whites did. This proves inequality in the workforce. Also, in school, whites were able to read, write, and do math problems better than blacks and Latinos. This proves that blacks and Latinos are receiving less opportunities in education. Segregation, weak educational programs, broken homes, and horrible economic reasons all affect the living conditions of blacks today.

I think its interesting and yet sad to see the rates at which white, Hispanic and African American children can read, write, etc. compared to each other. It is sad that children know how poor they are or that their race is looked at as poor at such a young age. Not until I was a young teen did I realize class differences. It is sad that our youth are being raised knowing these differences when they should be able to grow up assuming everyone should be treated equally and everyone has the potential to gain and become something in life.

The part about white children picking out light skinned children as a positive thing was disturbing. It is sad that this is how we raise our children to see others. Just because someone is of darker skin, it does not mean they are worse of than someone of lighter skin. This is a horrid misconception that we are instilling in the minds of our youth! We need to stop it!

I think that it is both fascinating and horrifying to learn about the vast differences between children of different races as they grow up. Through reading this article, it seems to me that the racial differences that children notice when they are 4-5 years old is a stigma that lasts their entire lifetime. Young children who see a clear difference between their various colors of skin tend to treat others differently, not because they are racist or discriminating on purpose, but simply because they don't know how to act any different. As they grow up, this type of treatment continues because parents have not thought to bring up the conversation of race and diversity with their children. We live in a time period where people are very careful to act "politically correct," which oftentimes means that we act color blind so as to avoid the topic of race altogether. When children learn from their parents to be colorblind, this often tends to lead to covert and subconscious discrimination against people of different races. This attitude regarding social differences will inevitably last throughout a child's entire life; it is important to be open with children and teach them that it is okay that there are different races and different cultures! This way, children of darker skin are not growing up beleiving that they are subordinate to white kids, and white children do not grow up thinking that they are better than everyone else. I think if this type of thinking gets changed, society will be closer on its way to creating a more equal society where people with darker skin are not discriminated against just because of their skin color, and white people are not getting preferential treatment just because of the family they were born into.

One of the biggest perpetrators of this "white is perfect" ideal is our media - Disney princess and prince for a huge example, has continued with their ideal in comparison - everything is compared to whiteness, white women and white men. White is the "ideal" -- Belle, Cinderella, Snow WHITE, Jane, Little Mermaid, Sleeping Beauty, Tinkerbele, etc...all of the main characters that are women have been white - all of comparison to perfection and beauty has been white - all of the friends in each of these characters have been second class characters - never the protagonist - hence why when the Princes & The Frog came out there was such upheaval - notice how there has only been one pocahontas movie, one jasmine movie - every other movie involved has been with a white protagonist - the current expanding franchise has been Tinkerbel - so, there's food for thought as to where kids are getting the comparison....

Additionally, this ideal of "white is good and black is bad" - comes to us from the Plato era - White was always seen as pure, majestic and perfect -- black was seen as rebellious, bad and sultry - we see this still in current movies - the vixen is always in dark garb or red - the innocent pure woman is in white or blonde - so we continue to compare everything next to white, pureness and purity and if it does not match - it's "less than"....

It is so sad... because I remember watching a video of having a little black girl choose the white doll over the black doll. And when being questioned for her choice she said the black doll was the bad one.

It is sad but also interesting to see how poor economic conditions can cause so many other problems. I don't think many know about these statistics and they are staggering! We first have to make people aware and then we can continue to make a change!

Everybody says there is this RACE problem. Everybody says this RACE problem will be solved when the third world pours into EVERY white country and ONLY into white countries.
The Netherlands and Belgium are more crowded than Japan or Taiwan, but nobody says Japan or Taiwan will solve this RACE problem by bringing in millions of third world immigrants and “assimilating” with them.
Everybody says the final solution to this RACE problem is for EVERY white country and ONLY white countries to "assimilate," i.e., intermarry, with all those non-whites.
What if I said there was this RACE problem and this RACE problem would be solved only if hundreds of millions of non-blacks were brought into EVERY black country and ONLY into black countries?
How long would it take anyone to realize I'm not talking about a RACE problem. I am talking about the final solution to the BLACK problem?
And how long would it take any sane black man to notice this and what kind of psycho black man wouldn't object to this?
But if I tell that obvious truth about the ongoing program of genocide against my race, the white race, Liberals and respectable conservatives agree that I am a naziwhowantstokillsixmillionjews.
They say they are anti-racist. What they are is anti-white.
Anti-racist is a code word for anti-white.

Us whites are a GLOBAL MINORITY yet you white genocide pushers say we must accept ever-smaller numbers of whites in existence as a result of your "Celebrating Diversity" white genocide agenda.

There is no magic percentage point of the global population when you anti-whites will start allowing whites to defend our existence as a racial group without squealing "raaacism" and HERESY! and demanding we be censored/arrested/worse.

The genocidal intent is obvious.

Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group

Anti-racist is a code word for anti-white.

More politically correct journalism that refuses to discuss the elephant in the living room.

The fact is that massive third-world immigration and forced integration is being foisted upon EVERY White country and ONLY White countries, and according to the UN this is genocide. Anti-Whites will talk about anything but White genocide. The word going around is that anti-racist is just a code word for anti-White.

It has been seen time and time again that we celebrate the victory of oppression, in the era of non slavery, anti-racism campaigns, and where the choosing of minorities into school and jobs is promoted. Yet, despite these attempts at ratifying the negativity which makes us believe all is well, we realize it is not. It begins with our youth. They are the ones who reflect our thoughts and perspectives. In a color blind would they have the same results. I believe not, and it is because of a residual trickle effect that these unflattering studies reflect. My thought on a conclusion to breaking the chains is as stated before in screening teachers and professors with a test that would some how judge the amount of racism that isn't seen during an interview or on a resume.

People need to be taught what is right at a young age. It is as simple as that.

It's so disheartening to think about the fact that in a society many claim is "post-racial," we are still dealing with these HUGE discrepancies between whites and minorities in quality of life. From healthcare, to education, to the job place, to even basic housing, the wide gap between what whites have access to versus what minorities have access to is astounding. I had no idea that, come graduation from high school, most Latinos and African Americans are performing at only the 8th grade level compared to their peers. And I additionally didn't know that the unemployment rate the United States, while high over-all, is nearly 16% for African-Americans, and nearly 40% for African-American teens. In a job market that, today, requires experience and education in order to make it, it seems that minorities - simply BECAUSE they are minorities - are missing out on the opportunities that they need to succeed.

The secion of the article that highlighted children holding preference for lighter-skinned people was not as surprising to me, however, because I recently read a Newsweek piece about the fact that children as young as 6 months old are already recognizing differences in skin tone. The babies in the study, who were white, would look nearly twice as long at a darker-skinned face than they would at an lighter-skinned face, because it was not something they had been frequently exposed to. And since many children grow up in families now that practice the idea of "color-blindness," that lack of familiarity - instead of breeding conversation - breeds fear and contempt. Parents are afraid to bring up the topic of race, and - in doing so - they make race taboo. And this makes white children think that people of other races, since they aren't being discussed, are bad, or scary.

This is why the topic of discussion is so important, and needs to be started early instead of being pushed to the side in favor of a child embracing the failed concept of "color-blindness."

It is very interesting that kids can pick up on racism at such young ages. In a previous class I had to watch old Disney movies and see how in most of their story plots the main characters are white, skinny, and good looking, and the 'bad' character is generally ugly, or fat, or dark. I never noticed these things, obviously, as a kid, but watching them and then seeing these statistics on kids was pretty amazing. I think a lot of this also has to do with parents not talking to their kids about race and assuring them that any color you are is ok. I agree with everyone who said that it has to be taught at a young age, or else kids are going to grow up thinking its ok to be racist.

I agree that exposure to different people and cultures can be beneficial for children, but I don’t think it solves the problem. Children naturally want to play with other children who look like them and are prone to believing that people who look like them share common interests. Even in diverse schools, children tend to segregate themselves. Adults do the same thing. Whenever we walk into a room, we look for people we believe are similar to us. People who we feel we share something in common. It makes us feel safer, more at home. It’s scary to talk to your children about race because you never know how they’ll understand it or how or when it’s going to come back out, but I think we need to come to a point where we can help them come to the right conclusions without being afraid of what they’re going to say or embarrassed when they inevitably do something uncomfortable. It is our responsibility as parents to talk openly with our children (and each other) about race. We must assure them that niceness, smartness and good looks are not exclusive to one skin color or another. It’s obvious that children are not colorblind and neither are we.

This study is of no surprise to me at all. It is very clear that African-Americans and Hispanics have had unequal access to resources throughout history because of their skin tones. It has become so common place now because the institutions that we look to for advancements (the education and legal systems) perpetuate this system of inequality for both groups. It is easy to look at the system along the lines of the tokenistic fallacy, saying that Barack Obama and Sonia Sotomayor made it, so that means anyone can, right? Wrong. However, the most important area that perpetuates racism is certainly in the household. The conversations about race need to happen at an early age so that children grow up knowing that black or white is not ugly or dumb, but just another form of beautiful.

Even years after slavery has been abolished, we still encounter racism. Racism comes in all levels, shapes and forms. It is not shocking in my opinion to see a little kid making a distinction between races; this is due to the environment in which many children are growing up in. I believe that the media plays a big role in forming opinions about race, sex and values. For example the Disney Channel and its regular TV shows portrait the so call “typical suburban happy family” it makes an over stereotype of an American family. The Disney Channel as well as other programs mainly focuses on white families neglecting other cultures such as African Americans, Hispanics or Asians. From a young age children begin to accept racist jokes as the norm and often exemplify what they learn without seeing is as a problem. Even though racism still lingers in our society I don’t think that as the child grows, the race of another person will be the determining factor of where they live, work or study. Perhaps it might have an effect on how they interact among other races but I believe now a day there is a difference between racism and discrimination.

Now in regards to the skin color having an effect on how a student performs in a class room I don’t think is just to say color is the determining factor. In high schools or colleges, all students receive the same education. Whether one race seems to be performing better academically it does not mean it has anything to do with racism or segregation from prior years. People (students) are and should be capable to try to succeed and on their own regardless what race they are. By stating that color has an effect on academic performance is just saying people of color are less capable mentally to achieve what a white person does and that in its entirety is being racist.