Is being racist a choice?

Nobody is born racist (or any other kind of prejudice). It is usually through their environment, be it media, parents or education which leads them to turn out racist or not. People learn from their surroundings. If someone grows up in a situation where racism is right, they will most likely be racist. The same thing applies if they are brought up where racism is wrong, they will not be racist.

It can start off as a framework based on life experiences, but often, people will pass their feelings across generations until you end up with children who are raciest but don't know why.

The basis of racism is a defense mechanism, for example, suppose you never saw a shark before and the first time you do see one, it tries to attack you, you will automatically feel that all sharks are mean and you will actively avoid them.

regardless of your own race, you can be racist to any race including your own, for example, suppose in the last 10 years, you got robbed 4 times by a person who is wearing a do-rag, baggy shirt and baggy- sagging pants. You can bet that you wont take your ipod out in public if many people who fit that description are around you. It all depends on environment. For example suppose you lived in a place where a man in a business suit constantly raised your rent, then another man in government in a business suit raised your taxes, you will be scared of people who fit that description

The scientific backing for this is called schema and heuristics Every animal with a working brain poses this mental framework. For example, if you get a rat and you put it in a box with a gun, it will have no problem even walking on it as it doesn't know what a gun it. but if you make it look at it and then you fire the gun at a random target, and the noise scares it, after a few times, it will stay as far from the gun as possible as it just linked the object with fear.

Much of the negatives of it come when someone decides to act upon their schema and heuristics in a way that will treat others negatively. Most racism today is based on mental frameworks that were passed down through generations where the generation to inherit the frameworks of the previous generation, will not fully understand it and thus you end up with people who are racist but don't know why and it will be incredibly difficult for them to change their way of thinking because they grew up with it. The problem only becomes worst when those people gain a position of power.

PS no one is born racist. if you take a baby to a zoo, it will have no problem crawling up to a lion if it is it's first time seeing one and the lion is not active aggressive, if the lion becomes aggressive when the baby starts messing with it, then the baby will create a new schema for lion's pretty quick.

Definition of schema:

A schema (pl. schemata or schemas), in psychology and cognitive science, describes any of several concepts including:

 An organized pattern of thought or behavior.
 A structured cluster of pre-conceived ideas.
 A mental structure that represents sex.
 A specific knowledge structure or cognitive representation of the self.
 A mental framework centering on a specific theme, that helps us to organize social information.
 Structures that organize our knowledge and assumptions about something and are used for interpreting and processing information.

it can be, you can chose to be openly racist... however, what you feel about something depends on what your were brought up like, and what you think about certain things.

racism is just plain ignorance which is a choice, once you get to a certain age you realize you can make your own decisions and how you take in information, as well as how you react to certain situations.

I don't care how you were raised. If you're old enough to think for yourself, and you judge people based on race, I have no respect for you.