How are cultural and racial biases formed?

Published on March 22, 2004 By Janders In Misc

I have been very interested, in light of recent articles, how cultural and racial biases are formed. IMO I think it has to be ignorance. To generalize an entire group of people seems ludicris.

I racked my brain trying to think of a whole group I am prejudiced against and I could not think of one. I would like to think I am not the minority in this. I am more hopeful in humanity to think that this the norm.

I know in every group of people there are unfavorable members, but should we take that to mean that they are "that way" due to their race, culture or religion? If we base our beliefs on the extremist, how can we not expect others to veiw us the same as our own cultures extremists.

As a Caucasian Christian Female. I am not a Skin head, KKK member, Nazi or a supporter of "ethnic cleansing." Yet in my cultural backround there have been Caucasian Christian "extremist groups" that support these causes. Does being a Caucasian Christian put me in the same group as these people? After all, the KKK bases it's beliefs on the Christian Bible. Solbodan Milosevic based his idea of ethnic cleansing on the premise that Christians were a superior race.

I have been taught that skin color is irrelevent to who a person really is. I see though that society does not always view this as truth. I see this every day in the prejudiced and racist comments people make. Even when you correct people, trying to educate them, it often falls on deaf ears. I have come to believe it must be easier for people to discriminate than to educate themselves on a culture, religion or race they do not understand.

What do you think people base thier biases on? Is this justified? Is it easier to judge than to try and understand?

Comments (Page 1)

stevendedalus

on Mar 22, 2004

Ignorance is supposed to be bliss, but you're right to the degree that the result of prejudice is ignorant, but the methid to show that your ignorant takes a deliberate, concious effort of one's mind to be shallow and cruel.

Janders

on Mar 22, 2004

Do you think when people are being biased it is with intention of being cruel, or do they not know any different? Ignorance is a poor excuse, because all humans have the intellectual ability to educate themselves.

JeremyG

on Mar 22, 2004

I think more often than not, predjudice comes from religion.

What's your opinion on homosexuals?

Janders

on Mar 22, 2004

Although my religion says homosexulaity is a sin, I am not anti-homosexuel. I think we are all sinners so their sin is no worse than our own. I have friends that are gay and I believe people are gay for a reason. They can't be made "straight". Whether this is genetically ingrained from birth or a result of somthing that happened in childhood. I lean more towards people are born that way. What do you think?

Jepel

on Mar 22, 2004

I think the biase against race, religion or whatever are developped from education. I would agree with jeremy with the role of religion in doing that as far as religion is involve in education. I thing also that for a lot of people it is much easier to affirm themself against something, someone or any kind of difference instead of trying to understand and build relationship.

Even the more tolerant and intelligent people can have biases. It is frequent for human to be narrow minded...unfortunalty

Janders

on Mar 22, 2004

thing also that for a lot of people it is much easier to affirm themself against something, someone or any kind of difference instead of trying to understand and build relationship.

Jepel- I agree with you on that.

It is easier to group people than to take each person on an individual basis. We know that the most intelligent people have biases. I feel it take a lot of personal work to be tolerant. I think being religously tolerant is prbably one of the hardest, being that religion is somthing people are so passionate about, and everyone thinks their own religion is the right one.

Larry Kuperman

on Mar 22, 2004

The Dictionary.com definition of Prejudice is as follows:

1) An adverse judgment or opinion formed beforehand or without knowledge or examination of the facts.
2) A preconceived preference or idea.

"Pre" meaning before, and "Judice" coming from judge. Essentially, the act of being prejudiced means you think you know, before you know. And most people who are prejudiced not only don't know the facts, they don't WANT to know the facts.

When I was a kid, Jews were called "money-grubbing" by anti-semites. I still don't know what money-grubbing means, but I never met anyone that could prove that, for example, Jews as a group give less money to charity than Christians. I did a two second search on Google under "Jews and charity" and found this article: http://www.rac.org/news/060701b.html with the headline REFORM JEWS URGED TO GIVE TAX REBATE CHECKS TO CHARITY: UNDERFUNDED FEDERAL PROGRAMS TARGETED FOR CONTRIBUTIONS. But the prejudiced mind is closed and will not be swayed by facts.

Did you know, for example that Tzedakah, or anonymous charity, is a core value of Judaism? See http://www.jewfaq.org/tzedakah.htm for an overview. Religious Jews give at least 10% of their income to charity.

Now, John D. Rockefeller was a millionaire and a notorious cheapskate. He was known to give dimes to people that he met or as tips. This story has been immortalized in movies and print. (It is also not wholly true, as it neglects that he gave substantial bequests to many institutions, such as $600,000 to the University of Chicago, but that is a different topic.) The thing is that no one said "Oh look at that cheapskate John D., all those white Anglo-Saxons are so cheap!"

The prejudiced person picks the facts that suit the opinion that they have been taught to have and rejects any that conflict.

Janders

on Mar 22, 2004

The prejudiced person picks the facts that suit the opinion that they have been taught to have and rejects any that conflict.

Well said! In every group of people there will be people with unfavorable traits.
I always like to think of what a little girl I baby sat told me "You know, there is only one race of people, the HUMAN race." Out of the mouths of babes. Why can't we join together and think that way. I like to think that MLK was not only a supporter of black rights, but one of human rights. Why does it have to only be a dream that we all join together?

Janders

on Mar 23, 2004

Qestion to all? Have you or someone you know, grown up in a household that was racist, prejudiced ect.? After growing up in that enviroment is it harder to not be biased, or continue those behaviors?

IMO: I think it would be hard to not believe thing you are taught as a small child? I owe a lot of my tolerance to my parents, who went to great lengths to teach my siblings and I tolerance? That brings me to another thought/ question (of course

) Is tolerance and prejudice learned behaviors? and How can we teach tolerance and stop prejudice?

Janders

on Mar 24, 2004

Has anyone here been a victim of a prejudcied person? Race religion or other?

on Mar 24, 2004

Religion-related wars have killed hundreds times more people than government-related wars.

Unfortunately, most of religions encourages hatred, ironic as that seems...

Second most common is from ignorance.

Third probably is from bad experience.

Janders

on Mar 24, 2004

xx- I disagree that most religions encourage hatered. Maybe that is just me being hopeful.....
I do think Ignorance is huge. Bad experience seems to also be a huge factor. It seems we only have to have one bad experience with a member of another "group" and we are likely to label the whole group.

Jepel

on Mar 24, 2004

Larry: I think that money grubbling associated to Jew came that their religion don' t forbid them to lend money or to make money with money. So they could work as bankers. As I'm not familiar with religion in general and judaism in particualr I wouldn't bet on it.

xx- Although you right to point that religion war killed a lot of people, you also have to distinguish religion and follower, Religion can be used for stigmatising groups as much as ethnic or nation, I'm confident in human to find another reason to kill each other if religion wouldn't exist...

Janders - Since I live in UK I have find out that american see me as cheese eating surrending monkeys... well i love cheese, but insult ng lovely creatures such as monkey is not nice

Janders

on Mar 24, 2004

Jepel- I have found in my travels abroad, that Americans are not viewed positivly in many places. We are very stereotyped(maybe sometimes rightfully so). I guess it is just our responsibility to change it. Are you british or American?

Mr Right0313

on Mar 26, 2004

In my opinion, and of course I see the irony in generalizing, most stereotypes and biases are based on the easiness of those conclusions. For example:

Hitler and the Nazi Party essentially painted Jews as the downfall of the nation. They turned the nation against the Jews for the most part. That is easy. Why blame yourselves or a variety of factors when we can just blame "those jews."

Stereotypes are easy because they transfer blame.

Mr. Right

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