Programmed to be racist?

Are we all programmed to be racist? Is a degree of racist response endemic in our DNA? I was wondering about this while the Celebrity Big Brother programme row over racism raged last week both in the media and in comments from senior politicians like Gordon Brown.

I have a theory, which I will happily admit to nicking partly from my old pal Missing Neighbour, about the nature of racism and why, despite the fact that our contemporary intelligence would counter such insane prejudice, many people are still capable of iterating racist opinions.

The gist is basically that we're predisposed to fear as 'the other' those from visually different tribal backgrounds as ourselves, since back in the day they offered a tangible threat to available resources (ie they'd nick your bint, your grub and then kill you painfully.)

The other stuff - mean Scots, big black cocks, Pakistani corner shops or whatever, is therefore just our civilised minds' attempts to justify the animal brain fear.

Missing Neighbour says that he believes that there is a 'low level anxiety' we all have when we are placed in unfamiliar situations/environments with people we don’t know. We are unable to make rational informed choices about our situation because our conscious mind has so little information to go on.

So what happens next is the good old brain stem (the bit left over from our long gone knuckle dragging days) kicks in and hey presto we turn into a prehistoric fearful raging ape. Obviously this effect varies dramatically from person to person but our primal brain sees change and difference as a threat, especially if the way things are at the moment (as far as our selfish self preserving brain can tell) are just fine and we are ticking along nicely.

On a more macro level racism and many other socially unacceptable behaviours seem to be extreme reactions to human beings being taken outside their comfort zones and the old ‘Its all mine and I am fucking keeping it attitude’ kicks in rather rapidly.

The important thing to remember though, is that we all have frontal lobes to override our animal responses.

This is why most men don't rape all round them, why it is unacceptable to rob other people's stuff and why racism is wrong.

But if you acknowledge the existence of the low level anxiety Missing Neighbour talks about, especially when there are visual cues of 'otherness' around you, like some punter with different coloured skin, or the fact that you aren't in your home environment, then the explanation for that, as I see it, is the animal response.

But it is up to all of us to use the 200,000 years of civilisation and development of our frontal lobes to override such responses.

If you consider Northern Ireland, where both tribes look, behave and think like each other in the same cultural context, or you consider footie crowds, where each side is made up of many different races, visual cues need to be created in order to generate the flight or fight response (kerbside painting, orange order sashes, footie scarves and shirts).

Once otherness is established, then it is up to the individual who feels threatened in themselves to override their animal response. Most of us do. Obviously the chavs of BB, threatened by the 'class' of Shilpa Shetty, haven't managed to do that and responded by seeking solace from their fear in greater numbers - ie bullying.

Is it racist? Yes, of course it is, even if Jade Goody happens to be of part-black inheritance. She wouldn't be the first racist of such a background and white people certainly do not hold a monopoly on racist attitudes.

But primarily, it is fear, safety in numbers, and ignorance that has inspired this bout of bullying. If you wish to ensure that neither you nor your children are racists or develop racist attitudes, then the crucial issue is to prevent your animal brain from taking over when you encounter people you automatically identify as 'other.'

Because if you manage to turn off that response, which is pre-programmed in us all, you are likely to discover that the people inspiring that response are human just like you, friendly just like you, worth knowing just like you and all of a sudden they are no longer 'other', just like you.