Ethnic Strife Proposal According to Henslin (2010) prejudice is not something adapted to at birth, but learned from the people around you as you grow. Children are all born with a clean slate which is why it is important to get them to accept the different races and ethnicities at a young age. As the new head of the U.S. Civil Right Commission, I would propose that all schools have a Multicultural Awareness course that would be mandatory for all students to take.
Educating the young minds should go a long way to ease the strife between different races and ethnicities. The children in this course would learn how groups of people are given certain labels which then lead to people being prejudice against them. “Symbolic interactionists stress that the labels we learn affect the way we perceive people” (Henslin. 2010). Taking away those labels puts everyone into one group instead of several separate parties.
As the children start to understand that the labels given to a set of people do not really define them they will begin to build their own opinions on them. The education and interaction provided should allow them to understand that while race and ethnicities should never be a factor in showing hostility towards others. Most hostile interactions take place because people unhappy with their own lives and are looking for someone to blame their frustrations on.
“They unfairly blame their troubles on a scapegoat—often a racial–ethnic or religious minority— and this person or group becomes a target on which they vent their frustrations” (Henslin. 2010). Teaching people not to displace their aggression should stop a lot of the hostile actions placed on these other groups. I honestly feel that education is the key to fixing these problems.
If children are taught to hate, then they can also be taught to tolerate. A course in which children are taught