Racism Autobiography

Running head: RACISM AUTOBIOGRAPHY 1
Racism Autobiography
Student’s Name
University

RACISM AUTOBIOGRAPHY 2
Racism Autobiography
Racism is one of the widely debated issues in many countries in Europe because it is an
aspect that seems to affect most people. However, we may be blaming the people who are racists
and not blaming the socialization process that children go through to learn and develop the racist
elements. As a child, when I was born I had no idea that I was white or black and had no idea of
anything like race. This means that I was born tabula rasa and was only supposed to get exposed
to good knowledge through the socialization process within my society. The socialization
process that a child goes through at an early age shapes the perceptions and view that they have
on the people and the environment around them (Pon, 2009). This means that racism is a social
element that is acquired from the societies that we live in based on how we are socialized.
The racism elements that I have and portray are based on the cultural elements that I
acquired in the family and society that I live in. Since cultures only thrive if they provide ways of
communication and assisting their people to understand the requirements of society. People are
split into different groups based on racism that has developed over time and segregated society
into different groups. This makes differences between popular culture and minority culture.
Popular cultures are seen as the best and are defined by the superiority of a race (Nelson, 2009).
Thus in the society that I was brought up in, I was culturally made to understand that racism is an
element of cultural superiority. Through the cultural resources that were invested in me, I was
made to understand the importance of race and how belonging to a certain race gave me social
identity and status within the society. Bizumic (2014), suggests that by having such resources, I
was able to develop an autonomous cultural life that defines people by color and leads to the
monopoly of cultural resources that spread the myths about being white. This led to the

RACISM AUTOBIOGRAPHY 3
development of ethnocentrism elements that have made me develop racial prejudice that makes
me view people differently.
Further, when growing up, black and white children or children of different races will
play together and share everything because they are yet to be socialized. Despite the fact that
race is a troublesome concept that has no generally agreed upon meaning, people have developed
racism attitudes based on the definition of skin color (Burt, Lei, & Simons, 2017). Thus this
means that when socializing their children, parents can intentionally or unintentionally send
verbal and non-verbal racist cues to their children that can make them adapt such traits. I have to
admit that as an individual I have been socialized through intentional and unintentional racism to
understand what race means and the difference between my skin color and that of others who do
not look like me. To develop racist attributes people learn through primary and secondary
socialization processes that they acquire as they develop.
Primary socialization is the process through which a child learns the aspects of the
society and communities that they come from. Since as a child, I spend most of my time with the
family members before starting going to school, then I was nurtured to be a racist in different
ways. I was exposed to racial attitudes within my family that I entailed, the type of movies that
were watched, the music that was listened to, the food, the dressing style and even the television
channels that we watched. Everything within the family was socially inclined to being white.
This means that when growing up, I never knew that indeed there are other people who were not
white like who existed in this world. I do not blame on the world but I blame it on nurture
process that entails the conscious and unconscious efforts exerted on a child.
Learning through nature entails the events that take place within the environment that a
child lives in. this means that the situations in the external environment that a child gets exposed