I was having a heated conversation with my partner about biases that we all have. I get very irritated with people that make racist comments, and it’s like something gets hold of me and I become an anger ball.
When I was growing up in Portugal, just after the carnation revolution which overthrew the dictatorship and brought democracy to the country for the first time, I lived in a fairly stable and prosperous environment, where religion and race where not an issue or cause for disagreement. Yes sure, I knew what racism was, but it was never something that occurred (visibly anyway) in my family and I always saw myself as being equal to any other race.
It may have helped that we were fortunate enough to travel and so from an early age I got exposed to other countries, other cultures, other ways of life. When I reached adulthood, I had strong ideals about the environment, humanity, peace and tolerance.
And then I moved to South Africa. Where racism was the norm, from both whites and blacks. I couldn’t understand it; it actually made me angry and sick to experience this deep-seated hate that existed between these two races. After living there for 2 years, I came to realise that it was a learned behaviour, it was passed from generation to generation, and it was only in very recent times that people (from both sides) were trying to reconcile, were trying to find peace and harmony, even among the differences. That was more than 15 years ago, and I have no idea what the cultural/social climate in South Africa is now.
But in talking to my partner, I was shocked to know that in Portugal, much has changed in the last 25 years. With the independence of our ex-colonies, and their development of the last two decades, the relationship between Portugal and those countries has deepened, but so has the social divide, the racism, the prejudice.
What does all of this have to do with my children? She was trying to make a point that her views were shaped by her own experiences, and that she wasn’t always like that. As a young adult, she didn’t have such bias, and she only developed it when she had to work with people from those countries in her current job. She conceded that her view might change again, if she was in a different environment. She then went further to challenge me – “why are you feeling like this? Why are you angry? You have to accept me the way I am. Isn’t that what love and tolerance are? Isn’t that what you are always telling me I should be, loving and tolerant of people? Well that goes for you too!”. I counter argued that I can accept people as they are but I have a choice of who I keep close to me. For example, I have a cousin that is a fan of bullfights; something that I find completely wrong. I have to accept that she is like that. But I am not in a relationship with her.
And then she hit me like a bullet – “Ah, so let’s see another example. You raise your kids the way you raise them, based on your beliefs and values. But you cannot control how they will turn out. So what will you do if one of your kids one day becomes a racist?” to which I replied “well, I will try to explain as best I can why that is wrong”. “Ok”, she said, “and what if they still don’t change their view? Will you just break your relationship with your child?”. There was no comeback from that.
Prejudice and biases are learned, which fortunately means they can also be un-learned. I truly believe that, even though our rulers and the media want us to believe otherwise, the majority of the planet’s population is intrinsically good. Just do a search for “faith in humanity restored” on YouTube and you will see what I mean. But the reality also is that even though we can teach our children principles of love and tolerance, we have no idea what other experiences and people may influence their views throughout their life.
And ultimately, if I am going to preach tolerance and love, I have to exercise it unconditionally. Even when I don’t understand, agree, or have difficulty accepting.