Congzhi Jiang
Section 01
Week 5
Racism is socially engineered injustice
As we learned in the lecture, there is no fundamental genetic difference between different races. This means racism is socially engineered injustice. Despite this scientific evidence, it seems that American society becomes more racially-divided every year. Police brutality, race-riots, media propaganda happened recently. It is not just due to the pandemic that levels of hostility, and resentment towards different races keep increasing in the society. If we cannot solve this issue, racial conflict will remain as the most damaging issue in the U.S.
Social engineering affects one’s perception. There was a social experiment of showing different pictures to African-American children and recording their comments. All of the pictures show social interaction between black students and white students that can be interpreted differently depending on the viewer. When African-American children were around 6-year old, they viewed the interaction as positive. But as they grew up, their optimism faded away and they graded the interaction as negative. This implies that children learn these racism from their parents, peers, teachers. This really makes me feel sad. Racism is the last thing I would like to pass down to my future children.
If racism is socially engineered, is it possible to socially engineer anti-racism?
[CNN]. (2012, April 5). Kids Speak Their Minds About Race [Video File]. Retrieved from www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OKgUdQF-Fg
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