The paper addresses the facility of developing and maintaining racial prejudices. The paper also proposes ways in which people may break free from the molds they have learned and that they project onto others, with respect to racial prejudice. The paper makes reference to topics and theories in fields such as psychology and sociology to support the arguments.
¶ … retain racial prejudices and how can we break such molds? Racism and prejudices, just like reading and speaking, are taught. This is one of the easy ways to develop and retain racial prejudices. Babies, toddlers, children, and even adolescents are highly susceptible to their environments. Yes, as children age into adolescents, they begin to think and act with more independence and defiance, yet they are not outside of the realm of influence from their families. The views, attitudes, perceptions, and language that people grow up in build the foundation for nearly all of their own attitudes. This is a reason why concerned and aware parents will seek to find a balance between exposing their children to a variety of people, so that they will not be fearful of people who are different, with being careful about to whom they expose their children to, either because some people do not agree with their views or because they are some people for which the parents feel prejudice.
It is easy to develop and retain racial prejudices when a person lives in a society where visual media is prioritized over other forms of communication, and that the majority of the visual media within a culture or society is prejudiced. In this way, a person may develop unconscious and subconscious prejudices without his/her awareness or permission. There has been increased attention and credit to field such as Media Psychology and Semiotics regarding the ways in which images and visual languages are constructed, and their direct affects upon areas such as perception, attitude, perspective, behavior, language, and socialization. Racial prejudice does not only adversely affect those whom the racial prejudice is targeted at as well as adversely affects those who target others with racial prejudice.
There is little doubt as to how insidious racism is and that it permeates every facet of American life. Intuitively, we know that racism is harmful for both the victims and perpetrators and that eliminating it from our society would be in everyone's interest. However, a number of scholars (e.g.,nD'Andrea & Daniels, 2001; Helms, 1984) have suggested that only when Whites are convinced that racism is detrimental to their own quality of life and accept responsibility for its elimination can we expect to eradicate it from our society. (Sage, 2006, 42)
When a person is brought up in a racially prejudiced home, inundated during his/her lifetime with print ads, moving picture ads, films, television programming, music videos, and other forms with racially prejudiced attitudes, it is not only easy to develop and retain racial prejudices, it is expected.
When a person lives in a culture that is racially prejudiced, there will be other ways the prejudice is supported and perpetuated. This is where racism comes into paly. Racism is not just prejudices attitudes or beliefs, or even behaviors, it is the systematic and institutionalized distortion of society such that the treatment people receive within a culture is heavily contingent upon, and even dictated by racially prejudiced attitudes that are policy and procedure.
Racial prejudice and racism feed on each other. If racial prejudice is not reduced, it could lead to racism, and if racism is not addressed, it could lead to more prejudice. This is why strategies to address discrimination on the basis of race should be thorough and multifaceted so that both individual attitudes and institutionalized practices are affected. (Hampton & Lee, 2012)
In society that supports and propagates racial prejudices, any resistance to the culture will be perceived and interpreted through a racially prejudiced lens on a personal level, and likely from the media. When there are a series of connections among the systems that constitute and support a culture or society and they are all based in racial prejudice, it is extremely easy to develop and retain racial prejudices.
Psychologically and sociologically, categories are necessary. People need to put people and things in categories in order to function in life. Racial categories are not necessary harmful or negative, but they do not inherently lead or mean they define or retain racial prejudice. Meaning, it is possible to divide people into categories based on their physical differences (and similarities), but that does not mean those categories necessitate or connote racial prejudice.
Dominant theories in social psychology have emphasized the role of racial categories. Few considered phenotypic variation within a racial category as a meaningful factor in representations, judgments, and treatment of others (Maddox, 2004). The mainstream perspectives asserts that, regardless of phenotypic appearance, an individual categorized as a members of a particular group is potentially subject to the full brunt of associated stereotypes and prejudices (Secord, 1958). (Maddox, 2006)
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