Tag Archives: racism
We Are Products of our Environment
It is my experience that from a very young age we are all in some way products of our environment. As we grow up our values becomes imprinted into the neurons of our minds. They say that children fluently speaking a foreign language up the age of 10 continue to speak it fluently for life. That seems the age at which our neurons become more fixed and difficult to later change. As we mature it becomes very difficult to change the responses we have towards people, things, and events. Continue reading
Posted in Personal Perspective, Social Issues, Society
Tagged biases, emotional response, homophobia, imprinted, natural response, neurons, racism, values
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Profiling
TV shows, crime movies and novels sometime contain professional law enforcement profilers who are able to characterize the behavior of individuals through body language, habits, and appearance. But we are all amateur profilers. The primary difference between the armature profiling we do and that of professionals is that the professionals have learned through the accumulated knowledge taught in education the psychological makeup of people and how this relates to their physical appearance and behaviors. But where would we all be if we didn’t characterize various physical characteristics and behaviors in people? Profiling is part of our defense mechanism that has socially been built into us to help us differentiate between friend and foe. The problem is that we often profile people based upon one physical characteristic such as skin color or obesity or shape of nose or eyes or beauty or ugliness. Such profiling fails to look as multiple features and behaviors that flaw profiling as a defense mechanism and sometimes makes foes out of friendly people and friends out of devious people. Continue reading
Racism, Guns, and Vigilante Justice – The Zimmerman Verdict
The July 13th, 2013 acquittal of George Zimmerman for the killing of an unarmed black teenager has many of the telltale hallmarks of racism and vigilante justice. George Zimmerman, a white self-appointed neighborhood watch captain at the Retreat at Twin … Continue reading
Posted in Crime & Justice, Government
Tagged acquittal, Florida, Gated community, George Zimmerman, gun, justice, kill, law, Martin, minority, racial profile, racial tensions, racism, shoot, Trayvon Martin, trial, verdict, vigilante, Zimmerman
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A Nation in Denial of its Immigrant Heritage
In spite of the US attempts to limit and exclude the immigration of Chinese and people of color throughout history, Chinese and other immigrants have made significant contributions to America’s development. In recent decades Asian immigrants continue to make major contributions in science and technology that improve our standard of living. Continue reading
ouR Social Conscience 