The opinions of a racist person
Racism and prejudice is widely spread, and is present in all
countries or societies around the World. Racism and prejudice is often expressed through
distrust or contempt for people who are different from the majority. These differences can
be of physical, cultural character, or just based on a different background, such as a
foreign nationality. It is a natural reaction for people to be suspicious about the things
that are strange to them. Sometimes this suspicion turns into anger, frustration, or fear.
Brought up to be racist?
A child is not born as racist. If the child is not exposed to
racism in its environment, there is no reasons for it to become racist. If however, the
child has been brought up to look at people as belonging to a group, such as blacks or
whites, instead of individuals, it will begin to compare the groups, and draw conclusions
depending on the group that they belong to, instead of the way they are as individuals.
This way of thinking will always lead to prejudices, because a person cannot be
characterized just by skin color or cultural background.
| Racism is often caused by fear Everybody wants to feel safe and secure and to be in control. You lose
control when you are confronted with a situation that you don’t know, because you
don’t know exactly how to handle it. This lack of control causes people to be afraid
of the unknown. People get scared in the dark because they don’t know what might
happen to them. The dark makes people feel defenseless from the unknown and makes them
imagine terrible things, for no reason at all. It is the same thing that happens to some
people when they encounter a person that they don’t know, they get scared, and they
start to imagine terrible things about him or her.
This can be seen in the way many people look at immigrants. Many
people don’t like them, because they are afraid that they will "steal"
their jobs, live on social security and ruin their country. |
Photographer: Jacob Holdt |
Photographer: Elisabeth
Borch |
These allegations are very far from the truth, as a
matter of fact migrant workers often get the jobs that no other people would do, and the
ones that receive welfare often receives it because they cannot get a job because of their
color or cultural background. The feeling of
superiority or inferiority
Many racist people claim that their "race" or culture
is superior to others. It might sound a bit strange, but often this belief in superiority
is actually caused by fear or even the feeling of inferiority. As written above many
people are afraid of people that are different from themselves, and in order to reassure
themselves, many people imagine that they are superior to who they are afraid of, so that
they don’t have to be afraid anymore. |