Racism, Prejudice and Ideology

The topic of the root of racism is always very broad; there are always many different roots of racism. Some people would argue that racism is just based completely on prejudice, people. Other people might argue that racism is something that a person is born into, such as a low income or some form of oppression that keeps the person from being able to break out of their social status. Ideology most likely is not the whole reason behind racism, though it must play a large role, instead it leads to prejudice, which is then confirmed when stereotypes are sometimes shown to be true in everyday life.

If racism were based completely on ideologies and prejudices, then racism should be a simple issue to solve. People are not born prejudiced, prejudice stems from ideologies that are imposed from a person's environment and society. If ideologies were phased out from generation to generation, then there will soon be no more prejudice, and therefore no more racism. Unfortunately, according to Dr. Lowy, ideologies and prejudice are not the only cause of racism, "Prejudice is not the cause of racism but a consequence and symptom of racism's persistence and continuing reality" (Lowy).

Oftentimes, ideologies are based off of stereotypes that are formed from looking at a demographics of people or people in a specific community. For example, there are many people that are born into a demographic income that puts them at a disadvantage when they try to break out of their social status. A very common example is when someone of a race that can be considered low class or low social status has a child in a low income situation, and instead of being able to study and pursue an education, they have to work at a young age to help support themselves and their family. People in such situations are born into a situation where they do not have an unfair disadvantage when trying to move out of their social status and thus fall into a category that can make them more susceptible to racial prejudice and ideologies.

There is also the problem of stereotypes being confirmed over and over again, sustaining the prejudices and ideologies that promote the stereotypes and racism in the first place. Human beings psychologically tend to look for explanations to explain what they see, and therefore, when confronted with a racial stereotype, unconsciously thinks of it as a universal proof that stereotypes are true. For example, if there is a stereotype about Asian people claiming that all Asian people are ridiculously gifted in mathematics, most people would unconsciously overlook any Asian person that does not do well in mathematics, whereas when an Asian person does do well in mathematics, a person could automatically think of that one incident as a confirmation to the stereotype that they thought was true. Though stereotypes are not always apparent, they bring out our attention when a stereotype does happen, thus further confirming the stereotype that was based off of ideology and prejudice.

To say that racism is based purely off of ideologies and prejudices is a narrow minded view of racism. There is always support that unconsciously supports ideologies that society creates for people of different races. Society always has a way of setting an ideology based on how stereotypes sometime play out, and the stereotypes itself came from ideologies in the first place so racism is just a big circle of doom. Prejudice can stem from ideologies that are seemingly proven over and over again in incidents that people notice, whereas the non stereotype confirming situations are often overlooked. Through prejudice and ideologies being confirmed over and over again, racism comes up in our lives.

Works Cited

Lowy, Richard. Introduction to Ethnic Studies. USA: Kendall/Hunt Company, 2006.

Spickard, Paul. Almost All Aliens. Milton Park: Taylor & Francis Group, LLC, 2007.