The definition of racism is a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race (Webster 1828). Racism exists due to one ethnic group seeking to dominate, exclude or eliminate another ethnic group based on differences or superiority. Racism is an issue that causes division, wars, deaths and rifts between neighborhoods, countries etc. It is because of racism that some ethnic groups live in fear or are anti-social due to the atrocities suffered by this phenomenon. The concept of racism through studies is believed to have begun with the enslavement of Africans in the sixteenth century (Benedict 1940). Though racism is widely known against …show more content…
Through the environment a person can become classically conditioned to the repeat behavior that racism creates. Classical conditioning is a way of learning the environment through stimulus and response. Two critical components of classical conditioning are unconditioned stimulus (naturally evokes response) and unconditioned response (reaction without training or conditioning). So, for example is an African-American child, whose parents engrain them about the history of racism, experiences cruelty from a Caucasian child consistently, this bullying stimulates the African-American child to believe that the Caucasian child is racist and not simply acting as aggressive kids …show more content…
Circumstances like the death of Michael Brown, who was shot by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo., on Aug. 9, 2014, which resulted in nationwide protests against what civil rights advocates say is law enforcement 's tendency to be overly aggressive when dealing with black men (Susman 2016). Cases like these sparked the debate of racism’s reality and formed movements like Black Lives Matter which evolved from a social media hashtag into a national protest police brutality (Susman 2016). The upsurge of racism recently has cased much concern, with the return of groups like the KKK (white supremacists) and the stereotyping of by policemen on minority groups. Additionally, some psychiatrists have advocated making racism a psychiatric disorder, whereas others have maintained that doing so is inappropriate because it would "medicalize" a social problem (Bell 2004). From classical conditioning and behavioral theories, it can be determined that persons do mostly learn racism and its acts based on their social environment. Scientifically, it has not been proven that we inherit genes that cause social behaviors like alcoholism, drug addiction or racism because we are naturally born to observe and learn from we exit the