Shared resources must be demonstrably inoffensive. Like most people, oppressors simply are afraid of what the world would be after a change. Pre-civil war US Southern Whites were afraid of how life would be without slaves. Would they want revenge? Would they eat everything? Would they disrupt the social order? During Reconstruction these fears formed into a white-clad avatar in the shape of the KKK. Most members of the KKK were people of low economic status who shared the resources of the newly free, and just as poor, Blacks. They did not see how increased labor and income allowed for increased job opportunity. They saw a field hand position taken by a cheaper worker; they did not see the increased production of their own fields should they hire a cheap Black laborer (whose labor they could not have previously afforded as a high-priced slave). Thinking about the emotional aspects of a cognitive problem can lead to the kind of “trial emotional state” needed to persuade dominant groups that it will be ok, even better, if they allow equality of opportunity. Without the reactionary fear, it is possible to illustrate the positive aspects of an unknown change. …show more content…
Thankfully, the same conditions that led to cultural strife also grant us the ability to deal with it. Exposure to other groups is both the cause and the solution to racism and intolerance. As time goes on, new generations are born with greater understanding and experience with cultural equality. Current generations are already citizens of a multicultural, dynamic world. These societies and cultures are changing and evolving as they come into contact with each other. Traditional ways are challenged daily. In Edmunds and Turner’s (2007) paper on the emergence of global generations, they point out that births since the dawn of the Age of Information have unprecedented reach across national borders and philosophical