Learning From The Fear That's Motivation For Discrimination

Have you watched little children play? They display no race or culture discrimination on the playground. Little girls will run up to little boys they do not know and play tag. Children will invite friends home, and parents are sometimes taken aback when the friend turns out to be someone from a different racial group, or someone in a wheelchair. So what causes us to discriminate against people who are different from us when we get older? The main ingredient I believe is learnt fear. And your fear may not be my fear! An emotion that comes from fear is hatred, as well as hurt. Imagine what a different place the world would be if we accepted others we presently fear. Is this possible?

Interplay Between Fear and Discrimination

I believe much discrimination today occurs due to fear, as people see some types of people as a threat, and often it is due to a stereotype, where we place a generalised view onto people. Sometimes discrimination happens due to lack of understanding, as we often fear objects or individuals or events we do not understand. Discrimination may be displayed towards one person only for a number of reasons, sometimes just due to dislike, excluding the person from a group’s activities, or it may be towards a certain type of people, like poor people, or rich people, or people who are physically or intellectually challenged, or may be based on looks, or race, or culture, or nation—I believe most people in this world, no matter who, will at some time discriminate against someone else, be it in thought only. You may be discriminated against on some level, yet you may also discriminate against other people. Discrimination happens on various levels and is unfair behaviour. 

We Fear Things We Have Learnt to Fear

Fear must come from somewhere, whether it is by personal experience, or behaviour learnt from others. Some believe that fear may be instinctual, like fear of snakes, but this fear is probably developed when we hear about the dangers of snakes from other people, usually when we are children. Some snakes are exceedingly dangerous! We often, therefore, have compelling reasons to fear the things we fear. As an example, if you see someone with a gun approaching you, and there is an escape route, the best answer is to leave and hide away. Fear is a necessary protection mechanism, signalling danger and ensuring we keep away. But much fear may be groundless, due to misunderstanding or lack of knowledge, as we fear that which we do not understand or trust.

Generational Discrimination

People often learn about discrimination while they are growing up as children. In some cases, knowledge of racial or cultural discrimination may be handed down from generation to generation. There may be discrimination mindsets on both sides—the people who discriminate against certain people, and the ones who are discriminated against. In many cases of generational discrimination, past hurt runs deep. Forgiveness may not come easily to both sides, and acceptance may be difficult.

Organisational Conformity

Organisational conformity is a process that happens in organisations where new employees learn to behave according to the presiding organisational culture. A new employee may start a job and see potential for change, but change is resisted by the prevailing mindset of this is the way we do things around here. People may not blatantly state why they believe or behave a certain way, yet it is an unspoken cultural norm, and it is taken for granted that other people understand these unspoken rules.

When starting a new job, or assimilating into a new culture, you will find it indispensable to wait and to first learn the unspoken norms as a measure of respect, as unintended disrespectful gaffs can so easily happen. I have experienced a number of occasions where I have been ignorantly disrespectful by not understanding the expected rules. A simple example may be sitting in the front row of a particular church for weeks, only later finding out that the front row is reserved for leaders, though no sign is present.

A reason I mention this here is that a similar process may happen to a degree in situations of generational fear. Often we no longer know why we are fighting, or why we fear certain groups, but we have learnt to fear and avoid these people. All of us may easily offend other people by not understanding cultural nuances, but if you realise that we are all different, you will see that a perceived slight might have arisen due to norms you may be aware of, whereas someone else might not be aware of these norms.

The Different Perspectives We See

Similar groups of people who live in different countries do not always have the same stereotypes and discrimination mindsets. I suspect that sometimes the viewpoint differs depending who is in the majority group, the past experience of each group, and culture in general. A Christian might be seen as a threat in one nation, and seen as safe and a peacemaker in another nation. Someone in a wheelchair, who is ignored in one country, might be seen as a battler and someone to embrace in another country. What do others see when they see you or see me?

Understand culture. Understand why some people behave the way they do. If you are not aware of culture, you might see a problem that does not exist, or you may be missing problems that actually do exist. Stereotypes are dangerous. Deal with individual people, not groups of people, and at the same time understand cultural mindsets, as these may give some answers to individual behaviour.

Complacency: the Dodo

Did you know there are examples of wild animals that have not encountered people before, and do not fear people? One example of this is the dodo, and, of course, the dodo is now extinct. Dodos had no natural predators and did not fear being hunted as food. Dodos were extremely strong birds and were fast runners, yet people were able to approach dodos and easily kill them, and rats and monkeys introduced by people to the dodo’s habitat were another reason for dodos being hunted to extermination. A lesson from this is that we only fear what seems to be dangerous based on our own experiences, and also that we may miss danger we should fear. Sometimes we fear things we should not, and are complacent about things we should actually fear and avoid. Often threats come from where we least expect them to originate, especially if we are blind, like the dodo, to seeing threats we have no historical memory of, and these may even be right in our midst.

In another example of complacency, I once stopped our car at a rest spot in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, where I saw we were allowed to alight from the vehicle to use nearby toilets. The Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park is a park on the northern most tip of South Africa and is a true wilderness bastion, where black-maned lions roam at will, as well as other wildlife like leopards and giraffes and snakes. You get my point! So here we were, stopping at an unfenced spot where we were allowed to get out of the car at our own risk, and where we were about to meander over to the toilets at leisure. As I was about to get out of the car, I glanced in my rear view mirror, and was horrified to see a pride of a few lions lounging lazily in the shade of a spreading nearby tree, probably less than 15 metres away from where my husband was rifling through the boot of our car. I only saw them because one lioness moved slightly to shift position, or they would have remained camouflaged. I screamed “Get in the car”, and he listened to me after some slight hesitation, and was of course amazed when I showed him the lions too. Just because a spot in the desert has toilets erected with a sign inviting use, does not mean it is safe!

Be on guard against complacency. Understand emotions involved in fear and scrutinise for repeating patterns where problems might occur. Understand mindsets that run deep. Search for solutions for positive change for all of us. Do not be complacent.

The Gorilla Hidden in the Open

Sometimes we do not see potential problems that are billowing right in the midst of us. In a video, which I have seen a few times at various training courses, our group was asked to count a particular sequence of events. We got to the end of the video, and were asked how many events we counted, which we gave. We were then asked what else we saw, and when most saw nothing else that stood out, we were asked to watch the video again without counting, and were amazed to see someone in a hulking black gorilla suit wander through the field of play. No-one had seen the gorilla in the midst of all the concentrating we were doing counting! Step back sometimes and observe the bigger picture. What are you missing that might be right in front of you?

Another example where we might miss seeing a threat is when we see someone or something day after day—like familiar strangers. The first time you see something amiss about a person, you might glance surreptitiously at the person concerned, gauging whether or not the person presents a problem. You may also check to see if anyone else sees a threat, and base your decision on this accordingly. As time goes on, you become attenuated to seeing the person, and the threat seems to recede, until the person is just another part of the background. Why were you on your guard when you first saw the person? Was there a threat or not? Is the threat any less now because you see the person often? This is similar to habituation of Mountain Gorillas, who are used to seeing tourists, and do not see these people as a threat, however, the unfortunate consequence is that these gorillas may not see poachers as a threat either. Be on guard against complacency.

Thoughts on Interpersonal Fear

Often we fear because our identity and our way of life are at stake. We may believe others will change us, that they threaten our beliefs, or our culture, or may do away with our standard of living if there are not enough resources to go around. We may fear religion, because some of these beliefs threaten the way we think about the world. Discussing politics and religion may cause conflict, because these topics touch on the heart of what we believe to be true and right, our ethics and morals. Imagine a world where we are all free to be who we are, to stand strong in our own culture and religion, and to understand and accept other people for who they are. Imagine caring for others instead of excluding them. Imagine learning from our collective past, changing mindsets, and stopping cycles where each successive majority may isolate new minorities. Imagine a world that is free and without oppression of any kind. It starts with me and you.

In the Bible, Paul said that perfect love casteth out fear, 1 John 4:18 (KJV): “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.”. Perhaps when we all learn how to love each other and live peacefully, we will not fear each other. Imagine...