race

In our society racism is socially constructed for us. At a young age we are influenced to think that white skin represents beauty or "good" while black or darker skin represents ugly or "not good." This is very evident from the video of the little kids we watched choosing which color dolls were the "good" ones. It was shocking to see how many kids picked the white dolls. So even at a young age we can see society constructing racist views even if it's not intentional. I wouldn't say I'm a racist, because I don't go around hating people that are black. Now to say that not everyone has racist tendencies would be a lie. I believe everyone has racist tendencies just because of our society. It is just how it is, we can see it everywhere. Another article that talked about this was an NBA article which stated that more fouls were called if the refs were of the opposite color (black and white) of the player they called the foul on. So this racist idea isn't just white people being racist toward blacks, it goes both ways. I remember I was walking downtown with a few friends and this black guy walked up to us and asked us for some change. Not one person in my group gave him money. Literally about five minutes later a white man came up to us and asked for change and a few people gave him money. Right there is racism, even if it was unintentional. My friends naturally felt safer or felt a better use for their change giving it to a white man. Sometimes we can't help but to have racist thoughts or actions, the only thing we can do is acknowledge that they are there and focus on trying to prevent it from happening as much as possible.