RACISM AND POLITICS 1

Racism and Politics

Name

University

Course

Date
RACISM AND POLITICS 2

Racism and Politics

Do you think racism is predictable?

Yes, I do think that racism is predictable. It is predictable because people grow up in cultures

that may be more accepting or unaccepting of racist behavior. People who grew up in bubbles of

racism, such as those who are in more traditional and homogeneous towns, would think that it is

normal to act racist.

Which factor mentioned do you think plays a larger part in the prevalence of racist

attitudes: education level or geography/neighborhood? Why?

Out of these two factors, I think that geography and neighborhood would play a larger role in

racist attitudes. This is because this contributes to the culture that someone is accustomed to. A

person who grew up in the deep South in the country would not have the same racist beliefs as

someone who grew up in California. People who grew up in the deep South would have less

exposure to cultural diversity, adding to the probability of them having racist attitudes. In the

TED Talk, the speaker emphasized that certain states have a higher likelihood of looking at a

candidate’s race compared to others (“Does Racism Affect How You Vote?,” n.d.). Therefore, it

cannot be denied that it has some influence.

What do you think of the solutions to the problem of racism that were proposed in this

talk?

While the solutions are concrete, I think that they are harder to attain than how they are

presented. The speaker proposes cultural integration and education. This is easy to accomplish

on paper, but it will not be reciprocated and accepted by the traditional and homogeneous

communities. These communities have lived in their bubbles for decades if not centuries already.

Because of this reason, they have grown to internalize the behavior and believe that it is alright
RACISM AND POLITICS 3

to be racist. They may also unconsciously act this way. If they have already gone to that extent, it

would be harder to simply educate them out of these perspectives.

How do these solutions address or fail to address the types of racism we learned about this

week?

These solutions fail to address aversive racism. Aversive racism comes from people who are

well-educated but are not willing to accept that they are prejudiced (Koppelman, 2019). If

education is the solution, it does not answer to the instances of racism found in highly educated

neighborhoods. It would simply presume that racism ends with a multi-cultural college.

Moreover, they also fail to answer to backstage racism where people try to make light of racist

comments (Koppelman, 2019). This is because these solutions just look at people who are more

vocal and upfront, rather than those who may be hiding behind a curtain.

References

“Does Racism Affect How You Vote?” (n.d.). TED Talks.

https://embed.ted.com/talks/lang/en/nate_silver_on_race_and_politics.
RACISM AND POLITICS 4

Koppelman, K. (2019). Understanding Human Differences: Multicultural Education for a

Diverse America (6th ed.). Pearson Education.