We Tell Them not To Be Racist. But Are We not Teaching Them To (Be) One?

We tend to blame the society for everything, even societal norms that are rooted down within the domestic context of one’s own beliefs and values. The blaming game is one of the easiest and most common way of dealing and justifying one’s behavior and actions. Its a source of trying to avoid the reality with the partiality of the situation without making direct target and taking responsibility for the consequences.

For years that have gone and others to come, racism continues to be an ongoing phenomenon that societies and even governments are trying to eradicate and solve. Through organizational educational programs, activities of equal opportunities, to conferences and events. They all continue to be the driving force for an ultimate aim of eliminating discrimination and racism from the community and the dictionary of humankind.

But every step forward is faced with a backlash of a racial divide that is built and rooted within the core of domestic teachings and traditions. And as much as family values are of great significance to the community, there’s still the probability of it destroying the whole norm of a healthy society.

Children are like recoding machines, they are robots who take in the verbal and visual information set upon them to connect the dots of understanding the outside world that is forbidden for them to be in at that stage of their infant life. We tend to assume that they’re kids who can’t understand and rationalize, which is true. But the information they take in at the moment, is stored within their minds until the time for logical reasoning sets and takes its strategic place to dictate the right and wrong. Infancy is a stage of taking in everything, the colors, the orders, the voices, faces and everything that makes it a requirement to live a normal life. However, dissecting each of that visual and verbal information comes in later in life. And that’s where most of our socio-political experiences and struggles come in.

One’s instinct to teach and lead is an international approach to direct infants to adulthood and familiarize them with the world that is beyond their early stage of life. It’s not always done intentionally, rather it’s a teaching mechanism for infants and children to differentiate between right and wrong. However, this teaching mechanism is built on pure segregation and a hierarchy that the world continues to evolve from and leave behind. Yet, it’s coming back stronger than before, and the blaming game continues to elope with the world outside of the cycle of innocence and pure ignorance.

We teach kids about division and segregation from a young age without taking into account the outcomes of what ought to become when and if this has been  applied into the realm of the real world. We teach them that white is clean and black is dirty, white is rich, black is poor, white is safe, black is a threat. Is this not the beginning of humanity’s end?. Is this not us telling them that there’s a difference between us and them. Are we not justifying the existence of racism through our own experiences and race?.

While our performance of teaching them early leaves us in pure pride of our actions and the fact that those children are learning from us. We are forgetting that behind the scenes, those phrases and words are  being applied on people in the real world. One might say that it’s good because they have learned their lesson and now it’s time to apply. However, one is not consistent with the fact that what they learned and are applying in the real world is nothing but racial behavior based on segregation and social division.

When those innocent children grow up, the whole idea of white and black and the huge gap that exists between the two tends to be wider. Now is the time where they see for themselves what black and white means, and how is it being applied. They’re not doing something from their own fantasy, rather they are simply applying what they have been learning all along. That includes looking down on people from different races and backgrounds, acting as if one race is contaminated and contributes to a negative perception of the community, behaving in a manner where one’s logic and rationality is only confined in one race, allowing the segregation of races and enjoying the status that comes along with it.

And then one would ask and say, “why are these kids racist?” , “how are they acting that way with no remorse?”. Well, the answer is  clear as a the day, and its because of us. We taught them that colors are significant to what one’s status and hierarchy in the society is. We told them that cleanliness and harmony is based on a pure fair skin, whereas the beauty of the darker ones are shed behind the shadows to where they belong.

We did that, and now is not the time to blame one another and point fingers on why and how, because in this situation we are all collectively responsible for it. Yes racism is still a thing as the new generation refers to it, but why are we not asking ourselves on why it still exists?. Why is it  something people continue to blindly follow and take pride in?. Why is there a bold racial line between humans?. And is there really a special unique trait for a specific race and color?, something that none of us had any control in?.

Instead of continuing this dilemma of teaching in a racial and color-based form, why do educators and parents not focus on equalizing the child’s expectations in learning. Instead of teaching them about clean and dirty, rich and poor through colors, there are different approaches to do that. Something less agonizing and more respectful. No one is taking the right to learn from them, in fact, a creative equal approach would enhance their communication skills and allow them to see beyond racial division and segregation that will continue to be a hot topic in the future.

It’s time to change, it’s time to stand for equality. Because in the end we’re all made of flesh and bones with a beating heart that sings the melody of humanity.