Osakwe, Chidi

Malcolm Campbell

UWRT 1104

6 November 2017

What Drives Racism

Ka-Ching! The cash register opens, and my father inserts the money for the product he

just sold to the customer. My brother, sister and I are in the back waiting for my parents to finish

the last sales of the day, so we can close the store. As we wait the front door opens and two

police officers come in and I instantly recognize their faces. Theyve been making an appearance

at the store once or twice every two weeks just to mess with my parents. They make their way to

the back where we are. The only thing they said is your Alcohol License is expired, which was

false because my Father just renewed the license. They come in walking like its just another day

and make their way to the back. I remember my father yelling at them as they walked in our

direction, but they didnt change course or wince even once. They soon made it to where my

father was, and I remember them pushing him onto the counter where the cash register was, and

my mother yelling at the second officer as he used his body as a blockade in the doorway. As a

child, we dont know whats going on other than the fact that our father is getting abused and our

natural reaction was to cry. As my father is taking blows from the first officer my mother gets on

the phone and says shes calling our lawyer and the officers instantly halt and begin to retreat.

So why? Why would those police officers do that to my parents? Why do people react the

way they do to other people? Was it because my parents were immigrants? Was it because my

father was a Professor? Was it because we owned apartment? Or was it because my parents were
black? Since that day Ive always questioned what made people hate others for no reason. I never

understood the logic behind those kinds of hateful actions. These are only some of the questions

that I will try to answer in this paper.

Some people believe that racism is something of the past and doesnt happen nowadays

to people in society. However this could not be further than the truth. A 2015 poll by CNN

shows that 57% of black have experienced some sort of racism through their lifetime.

Statistically black children are 18 TIMES more likely to be sentenced/trialed as an adult than

white children for the same crime and make up (60 percent of the children in prisons), qualified

black jurors are ILLEGALLY turned away as much as 80% of the time in the jury selection

process, one in every 20 Americans are racist(Racism and the Indelible Impact of Personal

Experience), and we could go even farther to speak on the neighborhood policing, to police

responses to Black Lives Matter (BLM) riots as we have seen recently on television, contrasting

with white supremist riots, etc. With all this information, which is widely available, why do these

inequalities happen to black people more than any other race in America? Georgetown

University Professor Dr. Pricillia Das says racism isnt because people are different from others,

but that people view others as less than them. (A Psychologists Explanation of Why Racism

Persists in America). Dr. Mahzarin R Banaji is a Department Chair and a Professor of Social

Ethics at Harvard University, he calls this the Us vs. Them effect. Because people perceive

people as being lower than them they treat them that way. Until the passage of the Civil Rights

Act of 1964 black people were considered less than human and because of this they were turned

away at different places and segregated from the dominant society (White people). A good

example is the segregation of buses in the south. The back of the bus would circulate exhaust

fumes which caused the clothes of the people and the people themselves in the back to smell like
exhaust smoke. The logic for putting black people in the back of busses was because they

believed that black people didnt have jobs too important in society to warrant them sitting in the

front and smelling fine, in contrast to a white person who should smell good for whatever job.

So, what makes people do this? Dr. Pricilia Das says that racism can be attributed

to the environment they grow up in. She says that if you grow up in an environment that believes

white people (or any race) is superior to another you can grow up with this social bias. A study

by the University of Toronto found that babies as young as 6 to 9 months old show racial bias

believed to be learned by parents. Some reasons for these biases are our lack of exposure to other

races. For example, if you step into an elementary schools lunchroom you will see all colors

sitting together and you wont see any racial groups seemingly segregated. In contrast to a lot of

high schools, where you will see the opposite. Admittedly, I have done the exact same thing.

Going into my high school lunchroom I would only sit with people who looked like me because I

felt they were the only people who knew the things Ive been through and could relate. But that

assumption that I came to couldnt be farther from the truth.

In 1948, the Apartheid began in South Africa. Millions of black people who were

the dominant race and the original race in South Africa were segregated and treated like second

class citizens because the white people there believed that the black people were less than them.

Countless inhuman things were done to Black people in South Africa all because people felt that

they were less than them. After the Apartheid was abolished, these things continued even though

it was legally wrong. People were taught, and feed, the racist notion since they were children that

black people arent on the same level as them, so they are treated as such. This mindset is very

detrimental not only to a peoples way of life but a societys way of life as well.
 Countless studies show that racism can also be an evolutionary trait passes down to help

people assess danger. Harvard University psychologist James Sidanius gives a great example of

unconscious prejudice by using a hypothetical situation. He says You're alone in a dark alley

late at night. Suddenly a man emerges from a doorway. If you are a typical white American and

he is a young black man, within a few tenths of a second you will feel a frisson of fear as your

brain automatically categorizes him. Your heart beats faster and your body tenses. In this event,

nothing happens. He glances at you and moves away. You walk on, feeling foolish for fears

based merely on his membership in a racial group.

This situation can be attributed to the kindness to us. Researchers say that our

brains developed partially to be able to cooperate with others. Which, in turn, gives us the ability

to place people group into subgroups that we characterize by stereotypes. Through the news and

what is portrayed on others is how we as humans define people and categorize them into

different subgroups. But people who we consider part of our in-group species, we tend to

characterize them in a more positive light than people who are part of an out-group species.

Researchers agree that ingroup love and outgroup hate could have worked directly with each

other to start prejudice. So, it's not that white people have evolved into being prejudice towards

black people or vice versa. But researchs think that the hatred and anger people show towards

each race is derived from various bad interactions. Even though this explanation makes a lot of

sense. What have black people done to white people to warrant their hate? I know as people we

can easily list multiple situations throughout history to support this argument with the stance of

black people hating white people. But historically speaking Black what could black people do to

warrant so much hate?

 Author and Former KKK member Frank Meeink tells CNN analyst Christi Paul about the

reasons people join the KKK, one of the most infamous hate groups in America. He tells her that

people associated with hate groups often believe they are losing what they have, such as their

jobs and their land, to people of other races. Because of these reasons they feel that white people

like themselves are being over looked in society and want to fight back. They dont only feel

strongly against black people but any race that isnt white. But where can this conclusion come

from? Why would you believe this when evidence points to the opposite direction? I believe one

source of this false information being spread and poisoning peoples way of thinking is the

media. Donald Trump, the current President of the United States, has went on record numerous

times stating that illegal immigration is sucking the jobs out of Americans pockets and into

foreigners pockets. People who dont do their research on things before coming to conclusions

will take this information at face value and run with it. Mr Meeink also talks about the reasons

that drive the hate inside KKK members. He says that during rallies people will attack or attempt

to attack him and the other KKK protesters. Instead of these actions deterring him and the others

it would propel them to continue on with here actions because they feel that the people attacking

them justify there actions. He says instead of trying to attack people who are for racial divide

show them love and dont attack them.

Culotta, Elizabeth, Roots of Racism, vol. 336 num. 6083, Science Magazine, page. 825-827, 18

May 2012 http://science.sciencemag.org/content/336/6083/825.full . Accessed 07 Nov.

2017.

Paul, Christi, Former neo-Nazi speaks out on Charlottesville, CNN, August 20th 2017,

http://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2017/08/20/american-history-x-neo-nazi-charlottesville-

newday.cnn Accessed 07 Nov. 2017.

Gregoire, Carolyn, A Psychologists Explanation Of Why Racism Persists In America, Pricilla

Dass Brailsford, Huffington Post, 14 Jul 2015

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/10/social-psychology-racism_n_7688910.html

Accessed Nov. 7th 2017.

Why Are People Racist?, Australian Human Rights Commission. Australian Community.

https://itstopswithme.humanrights.gov.au/resources/what-you-say-matters/why-are-

people-racist Nov.. 9th, 2017

https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/at-the-edge/2015/05/06/institutional-racism-is-our-way-
of-life

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/437311/race-america-personal-experience-changing-
perceptions
http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/28/health/racial-bias-preschool/index.html

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/babies-develop-racial-bias-young-months-old-study-
article-1.3052476