by Elizabeth M Young

Created on: May 22, 2010

Racists still exist because there are still differences in the physical appearance and makeup of human beings that are called "racial" in nature. It is inevitable that, even if all humans looked the same, some other way of using physical appearance and ethnicity to justify perks for some and not for others would be constructed.

One of the most infuriating and stunning recent examples of the ways in which racism is perpetuated and made a guaranteed fact of life occurred when MSNBC did a test of White children. A line of faces, beginning with very white on the left, then ranging to very black on the right, was put in front of the children. When asked who is dumb, those fat little hands went straight to the darkest person on the right. When asked who is smart, those fat little hands went to the whitest face on the left.

The questions went on and on through issues of friendship, good and bad and other value judgements with the blackest face getting all of the negative responses and the whitest faces getting all of the positive responses.

Those children got those ideas from their parents, their teachers and the other significant people in their lives. The parents professed to be shocked, but had to be aware that they were the primary sources of those children's belief structures, otherwise who else is more responsible? If those children or their parents had even one very black friend, then it would have made no sense for them to rapidly choose the blackest face as not desireable in a friend.

Racism persists because children are taught to segregate from, and to judge people based on their physical appearance. Non white children are equally taught that white people are crooked, greedy and dangerous. They are not good friends. They are dumb. They are not to be trusted. They are unfair. They will never change.

Racism persists because children of parents were taught by their parents and are teaching their children to identify race and to assign characteristics that are wrongly associated with physical appearance.

The US Government is the premier agency for forcing people of all appearances to work together. The US military forces young people to put their differences aside or to suffer the consequences. This is never going to be a perfect system, however, as gender, racial, ethnic and other battles persist on the battlefield and in the administrative offices of the military as they do in general society. But a great advancement in the

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