The first step is to understand where racism comes from - the underlying psychological and cognitive functions that lead us to see and categorize people by color, according to May Ling Halim, associate professor of psychology at California State University, Long Beach, and Sarah Gaither, assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University.
Babies from three months of age can distinguish faces by color, and 3-year-olds are perfectly capable of understanding racial categories, and even the hierarchies that accompany them. The trick is to accept that this categorization is normal and prevent it from turning into racism.
Halim and Gaither study race, gender, identity development, stereotypes and social perceptions. In collaboration with Kristina Olson at Princeton, Yarrow Dunham at Yale and Kristin Pauker at the University of Hawaii, they are embarking on a study funded by the National Science Foundation, which examines racial and gender bias in children of many racial groups in five geographic regions to learn how culture influences prejudice.
I asked Halim and Gaither how children adopt racist attitudes and what parents can do to prevent them from becoming racist.
CNN: Why do children favor people who look like them or who look like them in another way?Sarah Gaither: Prejudice within the group, sometimes called favoritism within the group or preference within the group, means that someone favors people who look like them or who look like them in another way: group or outside group preferences. This can manifest itself anywhere in our attitudes, in the way we feel positively about them, in an allocation of resources or in the characteristics and stereotypes that children learn.
They attribute positive characteristics to their group and negative characteristics to an external group. And that always refers to another group. No one can have a bias within the group without having another group in mind; you need this comparison. And everyone belongs to certain groups - race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, socioeconomic status, profession, college affiliation, religion, neighborhood, even your favorite sports team.
What Ling Halim: One way to measure this behavior with children from preschool is to give them stickers or erasers and say, "Who do you want to give this eraser or this sticker, this black child or this white child?" Depending on who they give more erasers or stickers to, this suggests a social preference for this group. We also measure this by asking the children with whom they prefer to share their book or lunch with and giving them the choice of different children of different racial backgrounds.
CNN: Why do children form these groups and why do they form preferences about their groups?Gaither: We learn by categorizing. As a child, as they grow up, they learn the language by assembling similar sounds. It is also a form of categorization and that is how we learn to speak our mother tongue. The same thing happens when we see different social categories, social sorts and objects; we begin to see similarities and differences and form perceptual groups.
Halim: This partly reflects cognitive development. We have to categorize people and objects, fragment them because it's easier. It doesn't overwhelm our brains to be able to put things in a group rather than seeing everyone as an individual.
Children are more likely to classify people based on their physical characteristics, so it makes sense that they group children by race and gender, which are distinctions that are often, but not always, easy to see.
CNN: How does recognizing differences between groups become racism?Halim: From the moment we are young, we regroup things and know where we belong in these groups, but we also have this motivation for self-esteem; we want to feel good about ourselves and the group we belong to. If your group is better than another group, you feel better.
It was an idea called "social identity theory" by Henri Tajfel, a Polish Jewish immigrant to Europe trying to make sense of the Second World War. This theory maintains that our sense of self is entirely based on belonging to our group - this notion of "them" versus "us" - which creates a feeling of belonging to our social world.
A distinction is favoritism in a group compared to negativity or the exemption outside the group. Much of the psychological literature suggests that most young children are biased in terms of preference for their own group, but most generally do not show outright hostility toward other groups.
Gaither: I don't think anyone's child was born racist. Children were born in a world that has systemic racism, and they were born in a culture that nurtures racist attitudes and racist ideologies and these ideologies permeate everything. If someone has racist attitudes, it is something they learn from their parents, from school, from the media and from culture.
There is your personal bias, and there is this broader bias known as institutional racism, which is ingrained in our society; in our social and political institutions which continue the disparities we see in the criminal justice system; in the health system; in the education system.
Because institutional racism is so ingrained and automatic and accepted, without enough people wanting to effect real lasting change, institutional racism ends up becoming our personal bias. But we must always be held accountable for our actions.
CNN: How can we prevent our children from becoming racist?Gaither: First of all, speaking of race.
We don't have enough experience or practice to talk about things that were built to be scary, such as race and gender. These are not things we normally talk about. Work has suggested that many white parents adopt colorblind approaches when talking about race, so when their child meets someone of other racial background, that parent will not feel sufficiently prepared to actually have this discussion in a way appropriate with their child on the breed.
In no case should we endorse a colorblind ideology. We must recognize the race and ethnicity of our country. We must recognize the historical lineages that accompany belonging to different ethnic and racial groups.
But this is not enough. Some work suggests that if you simply label someone as black, Asian, or LatinX, without giving context to what those labels mean, children can accidentally infer the wrong thing from a group. So when parents, teachers, and children label different racial and ethnic groups, they must do so in a way that teaches awareness of that group in a positive way.
What you can deconstruct are these automatic, implicit, instantaneous and often negative associations with racial groups that are different from ours. So stereotypes such as African Americans are academically inferior to any other racial or ethnic group is something that we have built in our society and something that we now know negatively affects student performance on tests.
We need to deconstruct these stereotypes by teaching children and adults that we can reframe these negative stories into positive affirmations. It is deconstructing the negative and being able to recognize all the beautiful difference that we really have between our different racial and ethnic groups in our society.
CNN: How important are integrated friend groups and nonverbal cues?Gaither: Parents must have friends of different races and ethnicities. Research with children shows that the racial makeup of a parent's network of friends is much more indicative of the types of racial attitudes that children will eventually have. If you have a completely racially homogeneous group of friends, all white for example, this child will be less likely to have a more open view of what race is.
They also need to be aware of their nonverbal behaviors - the body language that we show in different contexts, often without knowing it. Regarding race, a common example often used for this concept is a white person crossing the street when a black individual walks towards it. Very young children actively learn from these non-verbal cues. Although there is little research on this topic with children, it is another direction that we need to study much more about how prejudice is formed in young children.
Halim: The classic example that people think of most easily is when you see someone you feel uncomfortable with, maybe you are squeezing your purse a lot harder because you fear it you steal it.
This is something that I don't think adults often think about having an impact on a child, but the child will see this behavior and then associate it each time he sees someone who looks like him. These non-verbal signals are very telling children about what their parents think of the breed, and their parents are their trusted source of information.
CNN: What internal changes do whites need to make to prevent this from happening?Gaither: It is not an overnight change. Talking about race is really difficult, regardless of your ethnic or racial background. The average interaction between races is generally not going very well, as there is increased anxiety on both sides of this conversation. Everyone expects someone to say something wrong.
We all have internal biases, whether it's race, gender, disability, etc. But we can also all distinguish between what is called in psychology "controlled thinking" and "automatic thinking".
Automatic thinking is going to be that implicit stereotype that you would apply to a child who breaks your fine porcelain, for example. Your automatic thought would be, "This child is still a kid. This child is so ungrateful." You go to that instant response when someone does something you don't like.
But if you take a little more time to use your controlled thought, you make an intentional effort not to discriminate against this child, and you think rather, well, it may be because I ignored my child. last five hours. Perhaps there is something else in context or in the environment that ultimately led the child to adopt this behavior.
I talk in my lessons about internal or external arrangements or explanations of why someone is doing something. For example: kneel for the national anthem. You can look at these kneeling people and say, "Well, these are just people who don't care about America. These are people who do not care about our rules and guidelines. They are just troublemakers.
But if you use your controlled thinking and look at the larger context, then you see the systemic forms of discrimination and prejudice that these people have faced throughout their lives. It is this context that actually caused this behavior, not the disposition or application of the stereotype.
Halim: Acknowledging that you have these associations does not mean that you are racist, but you are exposed to all of these stereotypes around you in your environment. There is an explanation why you might have these associations. This can help people to recognize that they have these biases and to feel more comfortable talking about them.
What about people from other racial groups? Can they have prejudices?Halim: I think it is also important to remember that other racial groups may also have prejudices. Asians and Latinx can also have anti-black biases.
If we belong to other stigmatized groups, it might also be useful to reflect on the experiences of discrimination we have had in order to better relate them to the experiences of other groups with discrimination. I think a lot of people have done it, that's why we see protesters of all colors on the streets.
CNN: How can people, especially white people, recognize their own biases and change?Gaither: The first is to assess your own level of comfort. If you go too far, you're probably going to say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing. Baby's steps are a good first meeting.
The second thing is that we have to start to find comfort in discomfort. It's good to feel a little uncomfortable having these discussions, but what I tell people is that the more you have, the less you will end up feeling discomfort. The first conversations are going to be extremely difficult. You have to cross them to get to the easier ones later.
You must be vulnerable. Avoiding these conversations will only make this discomfort more important with each encounter you have. You should also be able to assess your own emotional responses when you hear things that you have never heard before. Make sure to take care of yourself after that. It will burn out cognitively - your brain will literally feel tired.
You need to find ways to recharge in order to have enough positive energy to enter conversation number two.
Parents and educators play a vital role in helping children of all ages navigate current events and speak openly about the historical roots of the diverse isms of our country. Learning to talk about things like police brutality and white privilege takes a lot of practice, patience and skill, no matter who we are - but it's the key to dismantling racism.
We need to listen to each other, learn from each other, and over time, these conversations will become easier while becoming more impactful to society.
