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Racial Discrimination

Decent Essays

Nelson Mandela once stated the following, “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin…People must learn to hate...” If people must learn to hate as Mr. Mandela stated, at what point in time and where are people forming these stances of hatred and racial bias towards one another? I chose to focus on the elementary school age group of children because I believe that at this age is when a person’s stance on racial prejudice and bias are initially formed. The social interactions and treatment of children within the elementary school environments could be a direct source of how these children learn to form racial biases, the type of interracial relationships that these children form now and how they benefit or harm them later in life, and how they could possibly be psychologically affected from this perceived racially biased learning environment.
Referring to the earlier statement I made in the previous paragraph about the formation of racial biases within these school systems, these biases are not always knowingly formed. In fact, many of the racial prejudices formed happen unconsciously by the interactions that children make or the treatment they receive as they attend elementary school. For example, a child’s choice to sit with a same race group of students at lunch rather than a more racially diverse group could be an instance of racial bias. These inequalities could also be formed through classroom dynamics, teacher and student interactions, and

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