Why are people racist?

[Mama05]

Just in the light of the George Floyd murder in America and the subsequent rioting, it’s made me think why are people racist?

I just don't get why the colour of someone’s skin is a massive problem to some people?

Like the colour of someone’s skin is justification enough to some people to treat them horrendously or even kill them. Just for the colour of their skin? I just don’t get it at all?

Lots of reasons. They want to be seen as superior to others. They want someone to blame for their own problems. They resent people being successful who they have been taught are less than them. Fear. Lack of education. The global acceptance of institutional racism.....

Control and power

Because racism is about so much more than skin colour

We fear what we don't understand.

Because we live in a world that was built by white men on the twin structures of racism and patriarchy. It is a white supremacist world. That is not extremist language. It is a matter of fact.

Scapegoating, being insecure about competition

Misplaced fear of those "different" from themselves. From the beginning of time people have been persecuted for being different in whatever way. I'd be interested to read about this from an academic (anthropological/sociological) point of view. Misconceptions, prejudice. It seems to be a human trait to 'other' people and I'm not sure that it's possible to eradicate that trait. It's abhorrent and wrong and there is such a long way to go with racism that I don't think I'll see an end to it in my lifetime sadly.

There has been centuries of imbalance that still needs to be addressed. It’s much more than direct racism it’s stereotyping, education, imbalance of opportunity even down to post codes.

It's not as simple as that. It's societal and political.

I have friends and colleagues who claim they aren't racist because they have black friends but still think it is ok to make jokes or assumptions based on someone's skin colour. They don't seem to understand that you can like/love/fancy a black persons but that does not mean you are not racist.

I think it's just stupidity basically. What elSe can it be?

This thing 'people fear what they don't understand', that doesn't make any sense to me. What is there to understand?

Humans come in different colours. How can that be difficult to understand..I mean to struggle with that surely indicates that the person is thick?

Thick people who are aggressive are quite dangerous.

Humans are tribal.
And skin colour is very obvious.

Theres also class. Wealth plus power seems to make other humans revere you. And in the western world its come to pass that the darker the skin the less wealth and power, collectively.
Of course, that brings up chicken and egg. But still, it's a massive element, imo

Congratulations on making it so "simple".

You're very clearly white

OP if you genuinely want to understand more watch 13th on Netflix

Ignorance. Majority who are prejudiced do not know or have experienced the lives of those they hate.

Misplaced fear of those "different" from themselves

I think that's it - gone to an extreme.

Taking the current situation and any politics out it, it’s evolutionary and I’ll explain why...

Way back when, when the human race lived in small tribes being racist (of a fashion) could literally save lives. Why? Well simply put other tribes had been exposed to or were carries of viruses that could wipe another tribe out as they had no immunity to it. Not to mention the fact that not all new meetings/discoveries will have been friendly. Think of it as how cautiously we would treat possible contact with Aliens/life not from Earth. Likely carriers of all sorts of bacteria we have no immunity to, even if they were friendly a simple and innocuous illness to them could wipe us all out.

In this day and age there is no excuse for racism, race hate or thinking skin colour makes one more superior than another. Whilst there is an evolutionary explanation for why racism and prejudices exist in the first place, you would think we would have evolved far beyond that now.

If want to look up and listen to a far more detailed and articulate explanation of this have a google or you tube search for Bret Weinstein, there is a particular Joe Rogan podcast where he discusses it.

Wow, Lily, kudos for being completely out there. Bollocks to your mental bullshit, we shag each other for the very simple reason that mixed up genes are a really fucking good idea.

"Evolutionary". Okay, you're the expert on evolution, I take it? Right. Good luck with the cult.

Have you heard of the concept of class, perchance? It's really fucking important, but I suspect you're a bit uncomfortable about that. Diddums.

Lily, who spun you that load of old tosh?

Racism, like any other discrimination is about trying to be superior, putting others down and then using that action to gain benefit. IMO.

It’s nasty bullyboy behaviour by the inadequate, nothing less.

I think a lot of it is inherent, hopefully as each generation becomes more enlightened things will improve.

I think some people can’t cope with those who are different from them.

Also our brains like shortcuts (see Daniel Kanaman) so can associate traits of one person with others of the same group. So some people read about a particular group of Romanian beggars causing anti social behavior and consciously or sub consciously associate all Romanians with such beggars. Or Asian men with sex abusers. And so on.

There are a vast number of reasons.

One of which is that people don’t want to do any work and would rather faff about in offices shuffling bits of paper.

For that to be a way of living, millions of people (including children) live in slavery doing the actual work. What makes people prepared to turn a blind eye to all that slavery and suffering is race. We couldn’t handle the cognitive dissonance of knowing about the people we enslave if it wasn’t for race.

It’s primal. A built in survival mechanism from our ancestors.

We are more conscious beings than animals and our tribal ancestors but it’s still within us.