Dominique Mathews Psychology 101 Adams State University In the article “Race and The Raging Brain” by Jeffrey Kluger talks about how people have been driven apart by religion, language, and geography the most common reason for separation is race. Jeffrey Kluger explains reasons what makes a person so worried about humans of different color, and why something so simple has made a big difference and can make such hateful people. In today’s society we have had to accept people of different color or different race more than in the past. On top of that, the United States has a black president, in Barack Obama.
Even though we have improved whites still connect white skin with good, brown with bad, and black the worst. When it comes to blacks the order is flipped on the way blacks view themselves. The article speaks about how it is hard to believe that it will ever change because of the way children grow up believing these assumptions. Another example the article talks about is how, one of the first things a child learns in school are their colors, and colors are related to specific items and even symbols. For example the color red can be associated with blood which then means danger.
A study, that took place at the Max Planck Institute, showed that children are not the only ones that react these ways to colors. In an experiment two groups of volunteers were given a picture of a banana and carrot. The difference of these groups was that one was given black and white pictures, but when asked to report what they had seen both groups said they had seen the items in their original colors. These facts helped determine that once you learn an item has a specific color, you will always associate that item with that color.
The same goes with humans when they look at the skin color of each other. A study by Yarrow Dunham helps us understand the brain when it comes to coming into contact with a different group. In Yarrow experiment he divided a classroom of preschoolers and gave the two groups different colored T-shirts. Dunham then continued on reading stories about both groups. After the fact he learned that the children were better off remembering the good facts about their own group rather than those of the other group.
This shows that we are biased towards people with same interests and backgrounds. Adaptive values can also have an impact of the way people view each other. Location of where someone grew up can determine a great deal. In specific regions of the country the people are known for different types of religion. If a Catholic were to come in contact with a Protestant then an argument or hate towards each other may form. Language may also play a role as to why different races do not get along.
Once a person has grown up listening to one language their entire life it is very hard to convince them that another language is better. The first language a person learns sounds lyrical to them while the second language sounds chaotic and ugly. This is similar to the type of food a person ate growing up or the clothes they wore. Once a habit has been made it is terribly hard to break. Racial inequality has been around in history for years, but the facts show that race does not exist on a biological level. When babies are born they are not born racist, the article shows that this learned thing.
Once a child is associated with the color of a human and it is a fear factor basically it is hard to change that idea in the brain. On top of this learning face, the environment a person grows up in can also be a reason for the stereotypes of other humans. The fact is that fear of other races is a thing you have to learn, it may be environment, stereotype or color but you are not born this way the brain must learn these things; and as long as people are still taught these things as they grow up then there will always be racism in the world.
