Quote:
Originally Posted by loramin
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Y'all are misunderstanding the concept (which is clearly my fault for explaining it poorly). How can I put this, it's not about "changing hearts and minds"; that has nothing to do with it. It's ...
Let's imagine you have a co-worker who always wears red shirts and always gives you a (too strong) friendly punch in the arm when he sees you. Eventually, after seeing him enough times, your brain learns "red shirt = punch". If he hits you hard enough your blood pressure will probably start raising the moment you see him and his red shirt ... before he even punches you, before you even have a conscious thought about him. In fact, your blood pressure will go up when you see anyone in a red shirt, because your body/brain has learned "red shirt = punch incoming".
All of that is way way lower-level than "hearts and minds" and such. But there absolutely is a real biological mechanism in play there: every human being on the planet, if they have that happen to them enough, will start having a physiological reaction to the sight of red shirts. And yes, your blood pressure (and the many other things that can be affected) do affect your thinking.
What does any of this have to do with racism? I can't remember if it was this thread or another one (and now I can't find a link), but in a study they found that when any race/gender (including black men) sees a black man their blood pressure rises. This is not "well my grand pappy taught me to hate black people and now I'm acting on that" kind of stuff, this is low-level behaviorist B. F. Skinner stuff. Think Pavlovian dogs' mouths watering to the sound of a bell (for those of you familiar with that famous experiment).
At the end of the day, it's just patterns. If the only Asian-looking people you see your whole life are villains in a TV show, it's perfectly natural that your brain will learn "Asian-looking person = danger". The only way to change that low-level "thinking" is to change the pattern: you need to see Asian-looking people not looking like villains (or anything else threatening) before your blood pressure will stop rising the moment you see an Asian person.
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I just think you overestimate how much influence TV actually has when it comes to absolving racism. People recognize what they see on TV is in fact not real.
The goody-two-shoes black character portrayed on TV doesn't convince a raging racist that black people are like him.
You absolve racism by intertwining people together in the flesh, not by having them watch TV shows that prove such people are actually human beings worthy of being treated with equal respect as ones own race.
Until a person is subjected to other races through actual contact they are going to believe in their hearts as they were indoctrinated to believe which is where parenting and family comes in.
Majority of racism is passed down via family lines, not via TV shows and as such racism will not be absolved by TV shows but by the family.
Individuals can learn differently from what they are taught but there is no denying the impact our families have on how we view and react to other races.