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Symbolic Interactionism And Racism Essay

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Symbolic Interactionism and Racism One of the biggest social problems that exists in the world today is racism. One way that racism can be explained is through the symbolic interactionism perspective. Symbolic interactionism is the study of how people base their meaning of social life through interacting with other people such as family, friends, or even strangers. Society and agency play roles in symbolic interactionism. Society is the network of interactions between people and agency is our ability to respond and think independently from restrictions that were placed upon us by society. There are people that exist today that were raised into holding a racist opinion on different ethnic groups. Through the symbolic interactionism perspective, racism can be resolved. Racism formed many years ago due to people interacting and sharing opinions about others. From the first day a person is born, they begin to adapt to their social worlds around them, beginning with their family. A persons’ family is the first social world they are exposed to for a majority of their lifetime. If a person is born into a racist family, they are more likely to share the same racist beliefs among some or all of their family members. It is in our nature to believe what we are told, especially at such a young age. As people become older we learn to think more …show more content…

Racism can be solved by people interacting with each other over a variety of different activities. Sports activities bring people together and show that we are all capable of playing a sport. Someone that is racist today could probably build a different opinion if they see other races interacting together over different activities and see how it is socially normal. As long as people build ideas upon people that are not racist, everyone can share the same belief that everyone is equal no matter the

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