Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
My parents never discussed race, class, money, religion, etc. to my sister and I.
The first time I heard the s-p-i-c word I was like 14 years old, I moved to the south and my neighbor said that word. I replied "what spit?" I had no idea what she was talking about.
If a kid decides to have a crush on someone of another race, they'll figure out the differences real quick. I hear parents all the time talking about how they teach their offspring not to see skin color, but as soon as their little girl starts having feelings for someone of another race, that's all out the window.
On CNN last night they did the baby doll test on white kids. The white kids failed miserably.
You should explain what a baby doll test is. I guess it is picking a doll that looks like the child but I have no idea.
Quote:
The "experts" on the panel said part of the problem is that race is rarely discussed in white households.
Sounds like a post-racial society to me.
Quote:
My experience as a white, absolutely true. White people almost never think about the color of their skin. Race is completely unimportant to white people.
Sounds like Whites are the least racist of the races in that case. Did the report say which race is the most hung up on racial identity?
Quote:
The only time I ever think about being white is when am around a black person, who I automatically assume hates me for the color of my skin. (a bit of an exaggeration) 95% of my education on racism came from the Tony Brown Show, Oprah, and PBS programs on the topic.
Sounds like some sort of weire liberal guilt complex. Avoid Oprah and PBS. I have no idea what the Tony Brown show is.
The only thing they ever taught me in regards to skin color was that I'd better treat everyone and anyone with respect and dignity.
My introduction to race relations was this...When I was 5 in pre-integration Mississippi the next door neighbor boy and I would play together and like a lot of little boys, we'd have our squabbles, and then be fine. One day, in his back yard, we were fussing and their part time housekeeper, a young black lady (my mom has told me later she was about 17) got tired of hearing us, came out and sent me home. I was mad at my friend, embarrassed at being sent home and mad at her...on the way home in the field that separated our houses, snuffling and grumbling I yelled over me should "You dumb ol' n*****!" (Obviously, I'd heard the word somewhere, but never from my parents.) Next thing I knew, my mom met me halfway across that field, grabbed me by the ear and the hair and drug me back to their back yard. The entire way, steaming along in her dress (all southern women wore dresses then) she's telling me how ashamed she was of me, how I oughta be ashamed, how I knew better and how I was going to learn better, etc., etc. She made me knock on the back door and apologize to her. She also apologized to her. Of course, she just laughed and said it was ok, I was just a little boy. What else was she going to say?
Embarrassed me to death, made me feel about an inch high, but it made quite an impression upon me. I've only seen her that mad a couple of times in my life.
If a kid decides to have a crush on someone of another race, they'll figure out the differences real quick. I hear parents all the time talking about how they teach their offspring not to see skin color, but as soon as their little girl starts having feelings for someone of another race, that's all out the window.
Baloney.
Not everyone. Some will, some won't. Some won't even though they may still feel that way, but their brain overrides their emotion. Some folks always follow their emotions, which often is not a good thing.
For example, my emotions wanted to say something stronger than "baloney", but my brain reined that urge in...
It's not limited to any one culture or geography. Xenophobia exists.
Skin color prejudice may be influenced by the fact that field workers are the most sun-darkened, and often represent the least wealthy in a society. Ergo, the fairer / paler folks were presumed to be wealthier or more fortunate. And with respect to beauty, the amount of sun exposure often determines the magnitude of wrinkling and other signs of aging in later years. Combine the two, and you can see the bias.
There were cultural biases based on skin color in the Indian subcontinent, as well as other parts of the globe. Though some racists point to the lack of archaeological and architectural wonders in the middle of blackest Africa, India has plenty of contrary examples that dispel the myth of melanin based intelligence capacity.
Frankly, any culture, society, or subgroup that has survived intact to the 21st century is a winner, regardless. What we do now, for the future generations, should be our major concern.
1. the act or process of assimilating; state or condition of being assimilated. 2. Physiology. the conversion of absorbed food into the substance of the body. 3. Botany. the total process of plant nutrition, including photosynthesis and the absorption of raw materials. 4. Sociology. the merging of cultural traits from previously distinct cultural groups, not involving biological amalgamation. 5. Phonetics. the act or process by which a sound becomes identical with or similar to a neighboring sound in one or more defining characteristics, as place of articulation, voice or voicelessness, or manner of articulation
I agree it has nothing to do with white supremacy, but do you mean that it is inherent then, that most children regardless of race, just prefer white skin blonde dolls?
Some standards of beauty are ingrained and universal. Facial symmetry, broad shoulders for men, a certain hip-to-waist ratio for women, these are things which have natural appeal because they are indicative of health and ability to bear and raise children. Things such as hair/eye colour, nose width, and eye socket depth have no generally agreed upon value and thus a preference for any of these features over another is artificial. Some scientists speculate but as of now we have no good reason as to why any of these adaptations would necessarily occur.
People are conditioned at an early age to look for certain markers of beauty in human beings. Children who are very young will only have extended experience with their immediate family and will thus express a preference for those who look like them. However children who grow older are drowned with images of the ideal and the objectionable. Beauty is ingrained in our subconscious though positive and negative reinforcement, Eg. If all of the leading men in film and television shows have a certain "look", those without the "look" are seemingly de-sexualised. If all of the leading ladies in the animated movies that every child seems to be barraged with have a certain "look", then a preference for that "look" is subconsciously adopted. That so much media seems to focus on dichotomies of good vs. evil, clean vs. unclean, trustworthy vs. dishonest, safe vs. dangerous causes people to associate these concepts with an individuals appearance.
Those dolls that you mention are among the primary vehicles of pushing social constructions of beauty. That people prefer to buy the pale skinned, blue-eyed blond is only evidence that these constructions still prevail.
Some say that everyone is born with an innate preference for those who look like them or their parents. This explanation fails to explain the broad preference people have for characteristics that they could never hope to have, ie. why would the black children associate positive things with the white dolls unless they had been taught to do so?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Violett
yes it does. When a mother teaches her child that every unhappy, unfortunate situation that her child goes through happens only because white people hate him due to the color of his skin, it's because she's employed a "sweeping indictment" of white people in her thought process.
When you say "history" is fueling her paranoia, you too are making a sweeping indictment that all white people in the past hated and tried to oppress black people.
I will agree with you that white people have become needlessly paranoid over being called or considered a racist to the point of abandoning common sense, and I agree that this is something that needs to be addressed and discussed within our communities.
Just to clear something up: Are you saying that acknowledgment of the existence of white supremacy and white privilege paste and present (separate concepts altogether) necessitates an indictment of all white people?
Why are people on this forum so obsessed with race? What year is it again?
You are almost right, why talk about race because we have racial characteristics that seperate us from the other races but my point to you, Why BLACK HISTORY MONTH, HISPANIC HERITAGE, and even the Muslims and Indians, non-native American HAVE THEIR OWN identity? It doesn't matter to me but you seem to believe Caucasion Americans should not concern themselves with race in the year 2010!
If a kid decides to have a crush on someone of another race, they'll figure out the differences real quick. I hear parents all the time talking about how they teach their offspring not to see skin color, but as soon as their little girl starts having feelings for someone of another race, that's all out the window.
First, what color are the parents and little girl you're referring too?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
