# Confronting racism in oneself **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 19, 2026, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confronting-racism-in-oneself/1030215 "2026-05-19T17:58:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2026, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confronting-racism-in-oneself/1030215/261 "2026-08-25T12:29:30Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > Infants and toddlers don’t seem to have it, if left to their own devices. Slightly older children start to fracture into groups, Infants and toddlers don’t have language left to their own devices. They are wired to learn it though, expectant of the social interactions that they guide exactly what language(s) they learn. Infants and toddlers if left to their own devices … don’t do so well. Developing into groups comes very early, and, like language development, it is pretty universal. Immediate family, extended family, tribe … Crap we divide hard on sports teams! Fictive kinships. I reject that “natural state” bit. The “noble savage” … “isms“ _are_ the “natural state”. Socialization at best I suspect can widen our fictive kinship to more usually think of humanity as “us” and redirect our desire for a “them” into harmless divisions. But butter side up vs butter side down is hard to avoid. Agreed end of day don’t matter none. Being aware is a first step. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2026, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confronting-racism-in-oneself/1030215/262 "2026-08-25T13:03:11Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > Slightly older children start to fracture into groups, but by then they have usually been influenced by adult behavior that they have seen. Children have the innate ability to be savage, cruel and selfish. It takes years to train children to be decent to other people. They’ll pick up on the hatred and racism without anyone making a special effort, while adults will spend hundreds of hours (over many years) on kids correcting bad behavior and encouraging good behavior, in the hopes it will stick. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2026, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confronting-racism-in-oneself/1030215/263 "2026-08-25T13:05:24Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Natural is not synonymous with good. Rattlesnake venom, deathcap mushrooms… This idea that “natural” automatically equals “healthy” or “virtuous” is ridiculous. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2026, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confronting-racism-in-oneself/1030215/264 "2026-08-25T13:23:09Z")
In my experience, a lot of people think “racist” means consciously racist, as in a white supremacist. I have a few extended family members who think that as long as you’re not in the KKK or other hate group, or if you do not declare “black people are bad”, you can’t really be called racist. To accept the label of racism means accepting the possibility of rejection from polite society, because often that’s the automatic consequences. There’s nothing elites like quite as much as excluding others from their ranks if you hold certain racist beliefs or say racist things, they’re more than happy to do that for the tiniest reasons. But elites themselves are often quite racist; I feel their main objection to pedestrian displays of racism is that it’s a lower-class signifier. They don’t mind the actual racism so much as marking oneself as “white trash.” Myself, I think all of racism reduces to the belief that there exists a category called “race” which is physically determined, and is suitable to decide what a person deserves from others, for good or ill. That, and the thoughts and behaviors that flow from that, are what have to be expunged from one’s consciousness. And it’s devlishly hard. All of us have a set of interlocking categories and views that help us make sense of the world. Pull out one, and like a Jenga tower, others start to wobble, and there’s a fear of parts of the worldview falling apart. Few people, no matter how much they want to improve themselves, are ready to throw their entire worldview in the shredder all at once just because they got slapped with a charge of racism, so there’s a tendency to deny and counteraccuse. I recognize it in myself and honestly I’m not sure how I’ll ever work it all out. My background is white southern. There’s a lot of stuff that gets baked into you at an early age before you have a functioning frontal lobe. I find myself consciously repudiating some idea or thought, and then some time later it pops right back up where it was. It seems like an endless process of whack-a-mole at times. Pointing a finger at someone and saying “you are racist” helps nothing. They just dig in. It’s more correct to say, that’s a racist thought or idea and you should drop it. But even that is fraught, because even the mere admission of having a racist thought is uncomfortably too close to “I am racist and could be expelled from polite society.” None of this has an easy answer. If any of it was easy, it would’ve been solved a long time ago. ---
**Author:** ![chela](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chela/32/21582_2.png) [@chela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chela)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2026, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confronting-racism-in-oneself/1030215/265 "2026-08-25T13:37:21Z")
These species may harm humans who come in contact with them but certainly you’re not suggesting there is no ecological benefit from their existence. Because you’d be terribly wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2026, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confronting-racism-in-oneself/1030215/266 "2026-08-25T13:50:02Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > Pointing a finger at someone and saying “you are racist” helps nothing. They just dig in. It’s more correct to say, that’s a racist thought or idea and you should drop it. But even that is fraught, because even the mere admission of having a racist thought is uncomfortably too close to “I am racist and could be expelled from polite society.” I agree in general, but at what point does the racist’s need to be intellectually coddled end? I can hear “that’s a racist thought or action” about myself and not collapse into a self-righteous puddle of outrage. Why can’t they? And will they really listen if we stop calling it racism? I’m not convinced they will. I’m not convinced they will hear any kind of message about needing to change themselves or their actions or beliefs. Also I’m not even sure you can talk someone out of bigotry. The only thing that has ever seemed to work is exposure to people who belong to the group they are bigoted against. When I think about anti-racist work it’s more along the lines of lobbying for police reform or making sure the staff at my nonprofit are trained to provide culturally appropriate services to survivors of marginalized groups. When it comes to internal self-reflection, it should be done, but I’m not convinced it should be the main focus. The easiest way to prevent yourself from succumbing to racism is to do anti-racist things. I’m far from perfect in this regard but I guess I’ve just come to think of the work very differently. I’m not sure what rooting around in my brain and extinguishing these thoughts in some abstract way is going to accomplish. And as _Der Trihs_ mentioned, trying to suppress thoughts makes them more likely to happen and could eventually develop into something like OCD (there’s also a form of OCD where people obsess about whether they are racist or worry they will have racist thoughts.) We can’t really control the content of our thoughts and I’m not sure we need to, to the degree being recommended here. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2026, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confronting-racism-in-oneself/1030215/267 "2026-08-25T14:01:25Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > I agree in general, but at what point does the racist’s need to be intellectually coddled end? I can hear “that’s a racist thought or action” about myself and not collapse into a self-righteous puddle of outrage. Why can’t they? I am telling you what happens when you point a finger at someone and declare, “you are racist.” But you already know. It’s better to target the specific behavior, and say that this specific word or deed or belief is a racist one. Even that isn’t guaranteed to succeed, because so many people will hear it as “you are racist”. Even an avowed anti-racist is going to have some initial knee-jerk defensiveness, perhaps more than others, because they believe they’ve put in the effort and they see themselves as most educated on the topic. To answer the implied question of how much you need to coddle people, that’s really about your own personal tolerance for frustration. Few people can be persuaded by outright callouts, some can be persuaded via a prolonged gentle drip campaign. Some are hostile to the idea that they need to change at all, some enjoy making you work fruitlessly to persuade them. So it’s really about how much of the emotional toil you want to undertake as far as exposing yourself to that. Sometimes it’ll work, but probably the majority of the effort will be for naught. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2026, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confronting-racism-in-oneself/1030215/268 "2026-08-25T18:53:06Z")
Mean people _enjoy_ being mean. The only cure for that is to wait for them to die while trying to raise the next generation to embody less meanness and tolerate even less meanness. But it’s a built-in feature of humanity that, until we breed it out of the species, we’ll be dealing with some fraction of every year’s new infants having the mean phenotype built into their psyche from before birth. ---
**Author:** ![Common\_Tater](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/common_tater/32/13846_2.png) [@Common\_Tater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Common_Tater)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2026, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confronting-racism-in-oneself/1030215/269 "2026-08-25T19:36:50Z")
_“Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late.”_ — **Thomas Sowell** , _A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles_ ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2026, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confronting-racism-in-oneself/1030215/270 "2026-08-25T19:43:14Z")
The there no doubt that we have inherited basic temperaments that we are each at least predisposed to. But nah, few people are born mean, and racism, or any other othering or acting on stereotyped presumptions, is generally not the result of being a meaner than others person. The concentration camp guard was just as likely to be someone who gave up his seat for the older gent, to compliment the neighbor’s garden and pick up the trash, as anyone else. There was a former concentration camp guard who became a head of janitorial services if our town’s high school for years decades back, no one knowing his past. When it came out much of the community came to his defense … because he was always so nice, to the kids, the parents, everyone. Sweetest man. He must have not really been the same person who murdered so many. He was NICE. His ability to do horrible things was not his being a mean person, not even special. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2026, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confronting-racism-in-oneself/1030215/271 "2026-08-25T19:57:06Z")
> [@Common\_Tater](#): > > _“Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late.”_ — **Thomas Sowell** , _A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles_ I like this quote, but the more experience I have parenting the more I wonder if people are more or less who they are regardless of one’s attempt at intervention. We can take steps to create the culture we want so people don’t get carried away or so they aren’t empowered to act. But ultimately it’s just kind of who people are. Maybe. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2026, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confronting-racism-in-oneself/1030215/272 "2026-08-25T23:49:43Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > the more experience I have parenting the more I wonder if people are more or less who they are regardless of one’s attempt at intervention I honestly suspect you have a pretty good sense of it? Your son was no Blank Slate, but clearly you appreciate that the love you give and the work you do to give him the specific care and handling best for him is what is allowing him to develop into the best version of him possible. Broadly of course our cultures entrain us: our immediate family culture; our extended family including created; our community and thereby the friends we grow up with; our country and our world. Children rarely come mean but all come with the potential to be mean - and to be kind. To the OP ‘s point, the kindest person raised in a great family environment and community, is still going to have thought processes impacted to some degree by the racism inherent in our society structurally, and few of us are at that ideal. But as above, we can try to be aware of the processes, and we can be open to considering uncomfortable possibilities about our behaviors. I don’t think that should be restricted to Blackness, but clearly it has to include it? ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2026, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confronting-racism-in-oneself/1030215/273 "2026-08-26T00:52:26Z")
I think it is likely that we all have some tendency towards xenophobia — of reacting in a negative way towards anyone who seems different from the folks we’re accustomed to. But it’s not inevitable that it’s going to harden into a set of negative stereotypes about this group and that group, each defined by how they’re different from us. And going in the opposite direction, it’s often true that people get exposed to a lot of different folks and become desensitized to difference as some kind of worrisome thing. That may have less to do with how your family raised you and more to do with the larger community and how homogenous it is and whether or not there are culturally shared xenophobic beliefs about certain different outsider groups — versus how cosmopolitan and diverse it is. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2026, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confronting-racism-in-oneself/1030215/274 "2026-08-26T01:13:12Z")
That’s a good way of putting it. I think most of my life I have thought of people almost entirely as a product of their environment and lately I’ve been trying to challenge that default. Like, I was raised in a conservative culture and was an evangelical Pentecostal Christian at one point, but even at my most religious I’ve always been liberal and pro LGBTQ rights. I wouldn’t have known to call it liberalism but the stuff I was expected to believe was often a really hard sell for me, even as earnest as I was to please God. At the same time, I had a liberal Aunt with a gay best friend. I suspect I’ve always had a natural tendency toward empathy and helping people out and promoting diversity, but my Aunt and her friend reinforced that. Man I couldn’t wait to get out of that town. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2026, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confronting-racism-in-oneself/1030215/275 "2026-08-26T01:14:52Z")
I spent six childhood years in Valdosta GA. I can absolutely relate. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confronting-racism-in-oneself/1030215.md?page=13)