Question: Is it possible to "unlearn" racism, prejudice and bias?
Stereotypes are often learned by the age of four. Media, television, family, neighbors, teachers, friends - all of these serve as teachers and reinforcers of the stereotypes that inform us about our status in relation to others, where we belong, and where others belong.
Answer: There are essentially two camps when it comes to the debate about whether or not it is possible to reverse or "undo" stereotypes and prejudice.
"It's just the way I grew up"
"It's too late to change now"
"My family taught me to be this way"
"What I see on TV and in the media just confirms what I believe about other groups"
Camp #1: The arguments highlighted above are often used in an attempt to silence pressure from others to change one's biases and prejudices. The main idea is simple: It's impossible to change one's programming.
Camp #2: Others have assumed that racism, prejudice and bias can be "unlearned," that the messages we began to receive early in life about others can somehow be erased - replaced with new messages and ideas that support improved relations between groups.
New Evidence
Newsday reports that Mahzarin Banaji - a Harvard psychology professor - and Elizabeth Phelps - a cognitive neuroscientist at New York Univeristy - have co-authored a study published in the journal "Science." In short, they found the following:- Shedding the fears we acquire about people of other races is as difficult as shaking our fear of spiders and snakes
- We're reluctant to change what we've learned about people who look different
- Personal contact with someone of another race can help to ease our fears
- There's a clear benefit to having positive contact with people of different races
- We can "unlearn" fear
- By recognizing their fears, people may be more willing to address them and become more sensitive to the hositlities faced by various groups
Therefore, according to these researchers, the answer is yes, we can unlearn the racism, prejudices, stereotypes and biases we've learned. We must, however, be willing to interact with others who may be different from us in appearance, to open our minds to new information that may contradict what we've previously believed, and to learn directly from and about others.More Race Relations Q&A