Isn't racism the dumbest fucking human kneejerk emotion?

[retrowire]

I mean, seriously. It's so tribal and primitive.

I just overheard a coworker bitching and moaning about "African Americans" complain too much.

What do you think causes racism in someone? Here's what I think.

1. A simple mind. A brain that chunks things up simplistically so that everything is easy to understand. The world is black and white and so the simple mind now feels it has a grasp on it and can cope. Nevermind the fact that everything is much more complex, that's too difficult. This person literally has a more primitive and lesser brain. This is the number one reason to me that I think hardcore racists are beyond recovery.

2. Little to no exposure to another race. Now the person only has stereotypes to follow and or has to make their own mind up regarding people they have little to no experience with, and since the simple mind doesn't like accepting "I can't make a decision until I have enough information", it makes broad assumptions, again making everything easier to understand.

2. Having a bad experience with another race. This leads to confirmation bias and rather than acknowledging, "come to think of it, all races are capable of fucked up stuff, including mine" it goes the simpler route of black and white thinking and now, the other race is "proven" to this person to be bad.

Can you think of anything else?

Had to vent.

[Act_of_Reparation]

1. It's simple but it's not.

People tend to sympathize more with members of their own in-group, and tend to vastly overestimate the significance of anecdotal experience. What results is a tendency to overlook the bad in one's own group while overstating the bad in an out-group.

This explains individual prejudice. This does not explain systemic racism and culturally transmitted racist beliefs. That is due in larger part to social engineering and divide-and-conquer tactics deployed by the ruling classes to keep the middle and lower classes fighting among themselves.

[mopinko]

2. here is my evolutionary psychology explanation.

Last edited Thu May 11, 2017, 12:17 PM - Edit history (1)

not something i have heard from any experts on the subject, just how it seems to work to me-

i think racism is the flip side of the move from only trusting clan to learning to trust outsiders to the clan.
this was a huge event in human evolution, it necessitates the development of a judgement of which outsiders are good, and which are dangerous.
yes, it is tribalism. tribalism is what superseded clan. it was a risky encounter, and suspicion of even accepted outsiders would have remained ingrained. it is a dynamic tension that remains to this day.
different skin color/overall appearance was a pretty easy tell that someone is not of your clan. perhaps this even occurred in early peoples. we dont know, and likely wont know, when skin color began to change, and what overlap there was. but the chances are that there were very, very early paths crossed w those whose skin color had changed and those whose hadnt.


one thing that is supported by ep experts-
altruism is a risky endeavor. it is supported by kin selection wherein a member of the tribe that is lost in battle will have their offspring taken care of by the tribe. this is the root of hero worship, which i think is as deeply rooted, and connected, as tribalism.
i think racism and hero worship are equally as ingrained.
and how many people do you know who dont worship heroes?

i think it will take a long time to reset this ingrained bs detector. i think that intellect can reset it, which is why there is a huge correlation between stupid and bigoted. but reset it we must, if the situation in the u.s. is any example.
see- drumph worship.

eta- "the moral animal" by steven wright is a book that changed the way i see the world. highly recommend it.

https://www.amazon.com/Moral-Animal-Science-Evolutionary-Psychology/dp/0679763996

[ProfessorGAC]

3. Pretty Nice, Mo

Hard to find much fault with your ideas here, and while unprovable (as you said), is at least a reasonable starting point for the discussion about the why.

[mopinko]

4. one of MANY things that we might figure out if

we could all admit that we are naked apes w car keys.

[Orsino]

5. Prejudice does seem to have had survival value.

"Us" versus "them" has been an important part of the glue that holds cultures together and foments cooperation (as well as competition).

The more civilized the planet gets, the sillier prejudice looks.