part 1

What causes racism? Psychologists, including Darlene and Derek Hopson who wrote Different and Wonderful: Raising Black Children in a Race-Conscious Society have done numerous studies showing that we definitely aren't born racist. It is a learned attitude and behavior. One friend told me that she believes the media perpetuates it. Another feels that it is picked up in the "mobocracy" type attitudes that develop in large public schools due to a "survival of the fittest" type attitude that shows up on the playground. If you're the odd man out or minority when it comes to skin color, you will be the one who is made fun of. Better to pick on someone else before you are the one who is picked on. I hope that with schools today not tolerating hateful words or racial slurs, that her opinion is misguided.

I don't have the answers, but I do think that most of it comes from what is either taught in the home, or what is allowed in the home. Even if parents don't feel openly racist, if their child comes home and tells a joke about another race and the parents laugh, the child learns that racist jokes bring positive attention and must be funny. On the other hand, if a child tells a racist joke and the parents sit down quietly and explain why that kind of joke at someone else's expense is not funny, an important lesson has been taught.

I'll never forget when I heard a man I deeply admire and respect share how when he was a child he used a racist word and how his mother kindly but firmly washed his mouth out with soap. She told him those were filthy words that would not be allowed in their home and that he was to wash them away so they would never come from his mouth again. It was a lesson he never forgot, and in the telling, one I will never forget as well.

What an opposite message from having your own extended family tell racist jokes. I was proud of my friend as she shared that she politely but very firmly confronted this family member and told him that her daughter will face enough racism out in the world, that she shouldn't have to face it within her own family, in the walls of her own home. I wholeheartedly agree.

In honor of Black History Month, I would like to tackle this topic from a variety of viewpoints. It's an ugly topic, and one that we wish would go away, but sadly it is alive and well in America as well as many other parts of the globe. It's a topic where I think we all could do a little more self-introspection and realize that if we are not standing and fighting against it, we just might be part of the problem.