Our innate nature enables us to experience a plethora of feelings that we as a species can share through our ability to express these emotions. The four basic emotions- happiness, sadness, fear, and anger further branch out to make space for envy or jealousy.
These basic emotions induce feelings of reward, punishment, or stress, which dictates our behavior on a root level. The mental mapping of our perception, comprehension, and the causality of our reaction when studying racism is quite fascinating.
One might believe that a racist outlook, i.e., “hating” or “discriminating” against a particular section of society based on their race, would fall in the category of “learned behavior.” Meaning, you tend to be racist if your guardians or people around you show signs of racist behavior.
While this theory might be true in some cases, it can not be used as a general rule of thumb. Various factors such as your self-worth, self-image, perceived place in society, trauma or abuse, and negative experiences with one individual can play a crucial role in forming your outlook and behavior towards a particular group of people.
Depending on your age, especially in your formative years, these factors can play a decisive role in perceiving racism and your feelings towards it. Racism is a self-defense mechanism that stems from a superiority complex often associated with narcissism.
The History Of Racism
Racism is a derogatory form of stereotyping and discriminating against a group or section of society based on their race. For example, assuming that all Asians are intelligent and hard-working or all American blonde women are dimwitted is a racist. This can translate into your behavior if you treat someone from a different race with prejudice or bias and discriminate against them.
Racism acts as filtered sunglasses that prevent one from seeing an individual reducing them to a group. This causes one to put individuals in a box defined by their stereotypes rather than their characteristics.
Early Theories
If we trace back racism to its originating points, it is observed that racism was used as a means to justify the domination of one race over another. This was used in conjecture with Charles Darwin’s theory: Survival of the fittest.
Historical research indicates survival advantages associated with being a racist. However, this proved to be mere conjecture when modern hunter and gatherer tribes did not showcase behavior of exclusion or racism.
Once the survival theory was sacked, another approach replaced it that indicated brain differences between races, leading to varying intelligence levels. American psychologist Gordon Allport argued that racism was a tool for people to understand each other better by putting people into categories with their shared traits.
Throughout history, various theories have been formed exploring the origins of racism. However, the recent racist incidents and police brutality in America showcase a massive gap between white supremacists and black people. Black people being pushed into slavery serves as the cornerstone of racism and birthed white supremacy.
These incidents were thought-provoking and made us all question if white people are favored in American society through systematic racism in their industries. Police brutality, segregation based on race, and Asian hate are all incidents that led to revolutionary movements such as Black lives matter and All lives matter.
Prejudice
Our life experience plays a defining role in our prejudices towards a sect of people. However, being prejudiced doesn’t necessarily make you a racist. In contemporary America, acts of outward racism are shunned, but prejudice against people of color is still somehow justified.
Prejudice can be eliminated with better interaction, open communication, and open-mindedness. However, racism is overtly directed at a particular group. For example, if a shop refuses to sell you their products because of your skin color, it is racist.
The line between cultural factors affecting your behavior and individual psychological factors is thin. Usually, it is observed that a white kid is more likely to be racist if their surroundings are racist and they have experience with people of color.
The Role Psychology Plays In Addressing Racism
Once you begin acknowledging racism, how do you “take on” the issue that cripples our society? How does one begin to deal with the overwhelming emotions that fill our minds and hearts when we think about people who have been abused and discriminated against?
The guilt associated with racism is extreme when one realizes they have been unintentionally discriminatory against a person. Even if you have no experience with racism and hope to bring social reforms to eradicate this problem, it can be debilitating to determine the root cause: Is it individual, environmental or behavioral?
The psychology of racism is evolving as our awareness of the issue grows every day. While we haven’t been able to abolish racism altogether, we have come a long way from the times of slavery and segregation.
