Racism Learned at an Early Age Through Racial Scripting

Racism Learned at an Early Age Through Racial Scripting This book is about the process by which white children acquire racist attitudes. More specifically, it is a book about what white parents, relatives, media, schools and religious organizations teach children about African Americans. The main thesis of the book is racist attitudes are taught (and learned) at an early age through a process known as "racial scripting". A Racial script is a series of programmed stereotypes and myths about a racial or ethnic group other than one's own. After a racial script is learned, it can then be activated upon the appearance of race-specific stimuli in the environment. Racial scripts guide the mind's eye in deciding what to perceive and what not to perceive. They work backstage, but may be activated and "pop into consciousness." Scripts determine "see this and not that", that is, scripts determine not only what we will notice, but what we do not notice. An activated racial script dominates awareness. The scripts may be positive and influence accurate perceptions; they may be negative and pre-dispose one to false perceptions; they may be neutral and dispose one to unbiased perceptions or they may be mixed and influence ambivalent perceptions. A racial script results from an early identification process by the immature child in which he/she adopts the parents' (the primary group) behaviors (scripts) and align his/her behavior with the realities of the home situation. The family is the basic institution through which children learn the fundamentals of life and parents are the primary agents of socialization. They define the child's world. They teach the "three R's (reading, writing and arithmetic). But, in addition to teaching children "the three R's" there is also another instructional system taught to young children called the fourth "R" or RACISM.