Are We
Born
The Little India riots
dramatically placed the
spotlight on Singapore’s
racial relations, which
begets the question: are
children born racist or do
they learn racism
from their parents?
Family & Life finds out.
Racist?
8 December 2013 will always be etched in the annals of
Singapore’s history as the day an angry mob overturned and
set fire to emergency vehicles and squared off against riot
police. It was a shocking spectacle that became the topic de
jour of many conversations.
Two months later, the repercussions
of the riots can still be felt today
and probably discussed for future generations to come,
especially the concepts of racism and xenophobia.
Despite our strict secular policy and the melting pot
of cultures and races, Singapore’s racial relations do
experience tension. In the future, racial issues could
become even more important as our children grow up and
grapple with an increasingly borderless world.
Cultural Cues
Racism in Young
Children
So, is racism inherent
in young children? The answer
might actually surprise you. According to
Professor Gil Diesendruck, who has been studying
children and their ways of perceiving the world, the
“roots of racism and discrimination towards those
different from us” are already surprisingly present
in infants.
So, what are these cultural cues?
Within the society, there are different
groups wielding different kinds of
power. For example, in a democratic
country, politicians are usually seen
as the people with enough power to
significantly influence the course of a
country. Generally, the majority race
in any place tends to hold more power
and privileges.
Newborn infants have equal abilities to tell apart
people of different races. However, between
the ages of five and nine months, psychology
researcher Lisa Scott from the University of
Massachusetts reveals that infants’ brains
experience a decline in their ability to tell apart two
faces within another race. Diesendruck explains
that it’s all part of natural evolution. “Infants are
attracted or have a preference for people who are
‘like them’. This similarity could be in terms of
how people look, what they like, or the language
they speak, among other things.”
According to Assistant Professor Kristina Olson
of the University of Washington, this phenomenon
can also be seen in adults and is termed the
Other Race Effect. “We have less good memory
for faces in out-groups (people who are different
races, statuses or income levels) and we also
tend to think that members of out-groups are
more similar to one another”.
Of course, this doesn’t actually mean that
children are born racist! Rather, it just
illustrates that children are biologically
predisposed to sort people into groups as a
coping mechanism, which could potentially
evolve into racism with the help of cultural
cues and the right, or shall we say, wrong
environmental conditions.
Because of this, Diesendruck shares:
“Societies develop cues to distinguish
among different kinds of people
because of the power distinctions –
th