Shall We Be Completely Transparent About The Real Racism Problem?

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Like the Aryan conquerors of India, white Europeans in the Americas wanted to be seen not only as economically successful but also as pious, just and objective. Religious and scientific myths were pressed into service to justify this division. Theologians argued that Africans descend from Ham, son of Noah, saddled by his father with a curse that his offspring would be slaves. Biologists argued that blacks are less intelligent than whites and their moral sense less developed. Doctors alleged that blacks live in filth and spread diseases — in other words, they are source of pollution. These myths struck a chord in American culture, and in Western culture generally. They continued to exert their influence long after the conditions that created slavery had disappeared. In the early nineteenth century imperial Britain outlawed slavery and stopped Atlantic slave trade, and in the decades that followed, slavery was gradually outlawed throughout the American continent. Notably, this was the first and only time in history that slaveholding societies voluntarily abolished slavery. But even though the slaves were freed, the racist myths that justified slavery persisted. Separation of the races was maintained by racist legislation and social custom. The result was a self-reinforcing cycle of cause and effect, a vicious circle — Yuval Noah Harari.

The real root cause of racism

What am I trying to say through the extract above? Racism is merely one of the numerous manifestations of a deeper problem: an invasive subconscious program full of limiting beliefs and distorted paradigms.

Like many noble movements, Black Lives Matter has been successful in mobilizing millions of people around the globe. No one can deny its tremendous impact so far.

It is said that the movement activists have a chance to get their voice heard by the newly elected president of the United States of America Joe Biden, who partially owes his victory to black communities.

According to The Washington Post and given American-African citizens played a considerable role in electing the new administration, I quote:

“The proposal calls for divesting federal resources from policing and incarceration, greatly expanding funding for low-income schools, creating a universal basic income for poor Americans, overhauling drug laws, and ending mandatory minimum sentences, among other things.”

Interestingly, no matter how urgent and empowering those solutions could be for the discriminated communities, their effect remains limited and reversible. How come?

Think of disease and symptoms. Let’s say I have some flu symptoms. I take medicine; my body recovers. Before two weeks are over, the symptoms are back.

The real problem is not the flu; it is my immune system. Thus, the medication effect will always be temporary.

Why do you think some of the new reforms that “activists successfully pushed in states and cities, including bans on police chokeholds, mandated body cameras and the creation of police accountability and review boards” were decided as mandatory?

Because the internal mental system driving the racist auto-pilot behavior is twisted, and that fear of the consequences is the only means to stop it. Racism is rooted in a limiting belief of grandiosity that comes with no surprise, I believe.

What is the solution then?

We can only achieve quantum improvements in our lives as we quit hacking at the leaves of attitude and behavior and get to work on the root, the paradigms from which our attitudes and behaviors flow. 

Perhaps the most important insight to be gained from the perception demonstration is in the area of paradigm shifting, what we might call the “Aha!” experience when someone finally “sees” the composite picture in another way. The more bound a person is by the initial perception, the more powerful the “Aha!” experience is. It’s as though a light were suddenly turned on inside. — Stephen Covey

This happened to me during my very first self-awareness serious exercise. Should you be interested, I detailed the experience here.

When we start being aware of the trap and realize anything that is violating the universal principles is nothing but a construct of our conditioning, we can break free from the grip of our false self and unleash the original being inside of us.

Those principles are not mine or yours. We were all fairly granted this compass and natural constitution: our conscience. They are our core part at the moment of our conception by our parents.

Principles are self-evident and can easily be validated by any individual. It’s almost as if these principles or natural laws are part of the human condition, part of the human consciousness, part of the human conscience. They seem to exist in all human beings, regardless of social conditioning and loyalty to them, even though they might be submerged or numbed by conditions or disloyalty. — Stephen Covey

The starting point is being honest with oneself to know thyself; then, meet the limiting beliefs and destroy them, that is we write our new principle-based program which would replace the old biased one that we never chose in the first place.

A limiting belief about oneself might be something as, “My mother never listened to me or took me seriously like she does with my charismatic brother. There might be something fundamentally wrong with me…”

Truth is: your mother might be a narcissist. Narcissistic parents assign different roles to their kids — a Golden child, a Scapegoat, and an Invisible child are the most popular ones.

To come back to the example, you are the Scapegoat, while your brother is the Golden child. In other words, nothing is wrong with you. Your mother is a self-serving person and an abuser. She never deserved the privilege to parent you.

The best limiting belief about the world that we could think of given the context would be, “Some people are rich, and others are poor; some people are ‘leaders’, and others are followers; some people are successful, and others are losers. That’s the nature of life, and I am part of the superior and privileged.”

This second kind of the conditioning by-products is much easier to spot than the first one. All that we need to do is diagnose whether the belief is violating any of the universal principles (fairness, honesty, integrity, human dignity, respect, service, potential, patience, and the list goes on).

Destroying both types of limiting beliefs makes us reconnect with our intrinsic worth, learn self-respect, build healthy boundaries, and love ourselves.

Result? We will not feel the need to feel better about ourselves at the expense of others anymore.

Our parents’ responsibility

Our caregivers didn’t do a great job is a sad truth to accept. Some are kind-hearted adults who were conditioned, themselves, and decided to have kids while being driven by selfishness and insecurities:

• They want to feel the oxytocin effect.
• They can’t bear the environment’s pressure.

Conditioned parents will vehiculate their patterns to their offspring until they start being self-aware, if it happens at all, fortunately before their kids reach 7 years old. Why is that relevant at all?

Because the subconscious program is written from before birth to 6. During this period, the brain plasticity is at its highest levels, and the limiting beliefs are still fresh; hence, reversing them is way easier than later.

Some other parents want to look normal to the world and confirm the fake image they are selling while hiding their true colors. It goes beyond this need for some troubled souls.

For narcissists, their children are a source of narcissistic supply that they need to survive. Kids are merely an extension of them with no separate identity. They are trophies.

If your family doesn’t get excited and cheer you up enthusiastically for the tiniest win, and unless your caregivers are suffering from some chronic depression making them almost disconnected from the physical world, chances are high you were raised in a narcissistic family system.

Why? Since you are an extension of them and that they are ‘special’, it goes without saying you must be granted all the favors! It doesn’t make much sense to be encouraged for what we ‘deserve’, right?

The parents would talk about their kids’ achievements with pride to others though; only because it is making them look good.

For those of you who are interested in learning a bit more about the character-disturbed parents different types, and how much they can impact their kids’ sanity, this article might be a good fit.


Let me ask you a question:

Do you think school bullies are raised in healthy family systems? Try to picture kids who were:

• Taught responsible behavior: let them make their own choices, empower them to do so, and make sure to take note of the good things they do,
• Actively listened to, so that to help them avoid developing a narrow range of thinking,
• Constantly feeling emotionally safe, given space to create and stay connected to their inner passions,
• Taught the value of giving, to be empathetic to others, and reinforced for their efforts,
• Most importantly, raised in alignment with the universal principles.

Do you think they could become bullies? I’m guessing the answer is straightforward.

I once listened to a moving video. There were two women accompanied by their daughters in a park. One of the little girls asked her mother:

“Mom, why are they black?”

“Sarah, don’t say that!”

“But Mom, they’re black.”

“Black is beautiful! They’re black and beautiful. It’s pure. You know darling, they’re black because God created them first, and he fell in love with his first baby and his/her beauty. So he created many of them with a beautiful heart inside.”

“Mom, so why are we white?”

“Well, one day God was passing through a park, and he noticed the beautiful little black girl sitting alone and playing with the white clay. She was trying to make a doll for her to play with! He stopped there to watch her closely. Her beautiful little hands were full of white clay. She has almost painted herself with it, and he was amused to see her! So he decided to make more people and paint them white. He loved his new creation, so he made all the shades of white and created all of us; but inside, we are all black; we are all the same!”

What is the implicit message the little girl learned, and which was her new subconscious algorithm: “We are no different; we are equal and should be treated accordingly!”

Some time ago, I accepted the challenge of answering the Proust Questionnaire, which was initiated by Tree Langdon. One of the questions was “On what occasion do you lie?”. Part of my answer was:

I don’t feel the need to lie anymore, not even to kids whenever they ask me a direct question. In my humble opinion, children need to be able to trust the grownups, and telling the truth no matter the topic is part of the equation. A friend of my parents who is 75 told me once:

I asked my mother about how I came to life. She told me a ridiculous story. When I discovered the truth a few years after, it was the day she lost my trust forever.

I am more than happy to contradict myself and admit that I admire the lies of the mom in the story as long as they were her way to educate her daughter about equality! For those of you who are interested in reading all my answers, you will be served here.

Final thoughts

Racism is not an incurable disease. Like any other deformed behavior, changing it only depends on a paradigm shift. I am aware racists are victims of their parents and that it is a family curse, giving the same patterns are vehiculated from generation to generation. But here is the deal:

When they say, “It runs in the family”, you tell them, “It’s here where it runs out!”

 

We all come to this life and spend some time. The question one probably needs to ask oneself is, “How do I want to be remembered after leaving this physical world?”

As a responsible human being who, despite having been conditioned, was brave enough to invest in re-writing the warped subconscious program — an adventure whose paycheck is priceless, or an individual who spent their whole life in survival mode and who contributed to adding more problems to the world’s long list?