White is right!!! Right?

The video shows how children in our society see race and how they view the adults around them relating people to skin colour.

While the video may be a limited study that might not be fair and accurate, it still resonates with me and probably many others who watch it because of the way that this type of inherent and immediate racism exists within society. The images given to the children are completely identical and have no information other than skin colour, they are able to make judgements and decisions about what they believe their character traits are. This then, presents notions of how a person is immediately judged based on their skin colour and outer appearance. In such plain terms of asking a child who is good or bad, or who is the smart one and so on, it becomes clear that there is a major problem of holding such prejudices in a wider context. As this isn’t only white children who believe that the white person will be nicer, but the black children are also more likely to pick the white over the black for the more positive attributes. So not only do we see common prejudice against other races but see a self-prejudice.

Socially, mentally and in terms of careers and economics these ideologies prove for a different start point for each race and one which, in today’s world, people are afraid to admit.

Racist beliefs probably first stem from white privilege, eurocentrism and colonisation and the notions of the other that are so ever-present in society. Terms such as naturalisation and universalisation are appropriate for such a topic, where systematically and institutionally society are told and constantly reminded that white is the norm or the default. These types of ideologies come from all different aspects of society: media, socialisation, education and the legal system. As it even in the way language is structured towards normalising whiteness and othering other races. Thus, we understand the world a prejudiced way, even if we are the marginalised race.

If we are continually told that white is the norm then we will continually believe that everything else can firstly be grouped into one big category of “other”, and secondly, that this other is abnormal. The repercussions of firstly ignoring it means that the privilege that the white race goes unrecognised, and secondly, that other races are undermined on an everyday basis. For example: white people get offered better jobs, are believed to be innocent rather than guilty, have better opportunities in life and so on.

It embeds in both white and black (and other non-white races) that the the white race is superior. Society continue to learn to these ideologies in throughout everyday actions in their lives, and it goes on without recognition. Once it starts being recognised and called up on there can begin a conversation about it. However, colour-blindness and notions of a “post-racist” world don’t allow for these types of dialogues. Racism, although not overt, openly exists as society continually merits the individual for their socio-economic positions, however, ignore the structures and systems that keeps people below one another due to race.