Racism by definition is any act or belief that denies the rights and needs or that degrades a specific person of a different race or someone from different geographical origins from others. Racism does lead to someone’s dignity and life being perceived as lower than others. Historically, racism was once left out in the dark before it was fought for openly by Antonio de Montesinos in 1511 when he opposed the Spanish Government for treating the native Americans in tyranny and cruelty. Racism then continues to create a huge scene in this world such as the infamous “I Have a Dream” speech by Martin Luther King Jr. in 1963. With racism seemingly to happen to this day, especially in multicultural countries, the question that should be asked is what are the causes of racism in multiracial countries? The causes of racism in multicultural countries are education, government, and psychology.
The first cause of racism is education. Racism is being spread through segregation in formal education. According to a report called Malaysia Racial Discrimination 2018, some schools in Malaysia including SMK St. Francis had built a second canteen exclusively for Malay Students with different workers, a set of plates, and cutleries from the main canteen (KOMAS, 2018, p.24). The students involved would also be led to think that they need to live separately from other races in Malaysia. Apart from that, family influences and teachings of racism also cause racism. Unlike formal education, children learn by observing and imitating their parents’ actions. Giuseppe Carrus of Roma Tre University in Italy led a study on how parents affect their children in terms of racism. Selected parents were given a task to respond to a statement about race prejudice. Then their children were given two tasks to calculate their level of implicit and explicit bias. The result shows that parents with high levels of prejudice have a higher probability to have a child with implicit and explicit bias (A. Krish, 2018). To sum up, education plays a big role in causing racism through formal education and family influence and teachings of racism.
Save your time!
We can take care of your essay
- Proper editing and formatting
- Free revision, title page, and bibliography
- Flexible prices and money-back guarantee
The second root of racism is the government itself. Political leaders spread racial beliefs to gain support and votes. In Malaysia, politicians tend to use terms like “Bumiputera Rights” to gain support from the majority community, which is the Malays. A simple example of this could be seen through Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob who is the Rural and Regional Development Minister has shown that he is the Bumiputera upholder champion as he continued to make racist statements while hiding it under the title of protecting Bumiputera rights in this nation (KOMAS, 2017, pg.24). Other than that, governmental policies also cause racism. For instance, Professor Andrew Aeria said that the arrangement of Sarawak state seats in Parliament by the Election Commission was separated according to religion and ethnicity (Aliran Admin, 2016). This causes separation among the people of Sarawak where labels are emphasized on their ruling. When government policy is starting to emphasize and give labels to their people, subsequently, the government is encouraging racism by themselves whether they realize it or not. In other words, the government is to blame for what causes racism by spreading racial beliefs and racist governmental policies. Lastly, psychological factors cause racism. Psychological factors can affect someone when someone experiences any incident that causes trauma and involves different races.
This is exclusive only to any individual or community that blames certain races for the incident. One instance that such an event happened on such a massive scale is the infamous 9/11 event where al-Qaeda attacked the World Trade Center by crashing two planes into the World Trade Center. According to Cole Mike in his book Racism: a Critical Analysis that is published by Pluto Press in the year 2016, after 9/11 happened, Muslims were to blame for what happened to the Twin Towers. Intergroup Clearinghouse made a report that concluded more than 1,700 cases of racism occurred involving Muslim Americans, South Asian Americans, Sikh Americans, and Arab Americans (Mike, 2016, p.40). Additionally, essentialist beliefs also lead to racism. This cognitive bias known as psychological essentialism leads people to view other members of the same group (Eg: Blacks, females, Hispanics) as sharing the same traits that are immutable. A paper called Essentialism Promotes Racial Prejudice by Increasing Endorsement of Social Hierarchies, shows that essentialism does cause racism because essentialism beliefs do imply that existing social hierarchies are reflecting a naturally occurring structure that can spark racism (Mandalaywala, Amodio, and Rhodes, 2017, pp.1,7-8).
To conclude, psychological factors cause racism with trauma involving different races and essentialism beliefs being the key component. In conclusion, racism is caused by different factors. In the context of education, racism can be seen when segregation happens in schools, separating students of one race from another. Family teaching and influence also affect children when children mimic their parent's racist behavior. Moreover, a government also gives a big impact on causing racism as political leaders spread racial beliefs and the government introduces policies that differentiate people according to ethnicity. Psychological factors are also an element that contributes to racism as people who have trauma start to blame other races. Also, essentialist beliefs are one of the bases of racism as people think that people with different skin colors are not as human as them. Therefore, a country could not have a good future if racism remains an issue as Abraham Lincoln once said that achievement has no color.
Stuck on your essay?
