Letters to the Editor

LTE: Preaching to the Converted

Date: Friday, August 16, 2002 11:04 AM
From: Ray McInnis
Subject: letter to the editor

This is my first posting on this discussion group. I applaud the work of the multiracial activist newsletter. Provides a much needed forum for discussion of prejudical behaviors, but unfortunately it is basically “preaching to the converted.” If we want to change attitudes, we need to discover how to target the racially prejudiced, and how to prevent others (especially the young from becoming prejudiced). In 1929, in “Race Attitudes of Children”, Bruno Lasker, an American sociologist, published what I think is the first empirical evidence that prejudice is learned a learned behavior. Lasker’s finding was an important discovery, but we seem to have not heeded the message. Change in prejudical attitudes occurs, person by person, one person at a time. How do we crack the code to allow us to make attitudinal changes of this sort? I am not asking this question as a poseur, as merely posturing. Instead I am genuinely intersted in seeking methods that we all can use.

Yours

Ray McInnis

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