Two 8-year old girls talking

[Joe Nation]

My wife and I are both retired and my wife volunteers as a teachers aide in my daughter-in-laws 3rd grade classroom when she is in town. The other day, my wife overheard two 8-year old girls talking about a cousin one of them has. She said, "My cousin is a girl but wants to be a boy." The other girl thought about her classmates situation for a moment and then said. "I can support that."

If only adults in a certain political party had the caring and compassion of an 8-year old, what world it would be.

[marble falls]

1. Kids have to be taught bias.

[csziggy]

3. Rodgers & Hammerstein told us that

[TreasonousBastard]

5. I agre. I'm constantly fascinated how children of all races...

and social strata get along and don't discriminate until they get older and learn their places.

There's a largely black apartment complex not far from here that has one strikingly blonde girl playing with the others and not a thought among the five year olds playing how odd that may look to some adults.

We lose something important when we lose the innocence of childhood.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

10. I'd be curious to know if this thesis has been proven scientifically

If based purely on the observation that there are many cases where kids of different races play together happily ... I would call that more anecdotal than scientific.

Seems like you'd need a pretty involved study, perhaps involving a lot of twins that were separated at birth and raised by in very different environments. Even twins aren't perfectly identical though.

Also 'taught' is a nebulous concept. If a disadvantaged black child goes to a predominantly white school full of rich kids, and the white kids are shitty to him/her through their formative years, and they grow up thinking, basically "white people suck and I hate them" ... were they 'taught' to hate?

I personally am of the opinion that at least a notable percentage of people (maybe 20%) are basically born biased against 'the other', and would grow up to be racists w/o being explicitly taught. And some of them probably played happily with other races as children, but as they became teens and adults, that changed.

And I think it's part of our evolutionary heritage. Fear of 'the other' is logical if you're a chimpanzee worried about an invading clan, for example.

Doesn't make it okay, of course.

[txwhitedove]

11. ? I testify to personal experience that my racist granny

tried to bend me to her way of thinking. Didn't work. My mom had pointed out an ant once, saying we are all God's creatures. That's what stuck with me.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

12. I could be swayed in my opinion by some rigorous scientific studies

But not by anecdotal evidence of the nature you've proffered.

Also, why did it not work?

Could it because you were BORN ... not racist?

I'd also point out that we do already have studies that show right-wing people have brains that vary from left-wing people (at a statistically significant level), I forget the details, but certain lobes are bigger or smaller, relatively. And that these brain parts are associated with 'fear' impulses, IIRC.

[murielm99]

13. Read "Caste" by Isabel Wilkerson.

I don't agree with everything she says, but it does shed some light on things.

[txwhitedove]

14. Mmm, Granny was a Democrat and a teacher with Masters.

Grandpa was same, but his mother was half Cherokee, which we didn't discuss with granny. Back in their youth, even the cemetaries were segregated. From my observation all these years, it is part nature, part nurture, and part shit that happens to people along the way. You could be my ghost writer for this story.

[marble falls]

16. Me, too. When Bill Clinton ran the first time, I really did not like him at all. One day I heard ...

... my youngest daughter, about four yrs old, tell the five year old daughter to "quick, change the channel, that giy daddy doesn't like is on!"

They pick it up from us alright. After that I called myself up short and got rid of certain words I thought were funny in private situations, I'd never use in public.

As a child, after being called a n-----r lover, I got rid of my black friends. I am still shamed by it and miss some of them still 60+ years later. My dad and grandfather were racist and I learned it from them.

My favorite grandmother once said aloud at a dinner table - "I'm not racist, I like some n-----rs." After dinner, I took a teachable moment and talked to my kids.

[bif]

2. We sure can learn a lot from children.

[RKP5637]

4. So many adults are so damn ignorant. They pull their esteemed knowledge from the seventh grade

playground. They think they know more than the medical professionals, psychologists and psychiatrists. And they want to poke their nose into other peoples genitalia.

[Takket]

6. nobody is born racist/bigotted/sexist..... it has to be programmed into them

[anciano]

8. Spot on!

[kimbutgar]

7. I substitute teach k-5 and there have been boys and girls who feel more comfortable

Being the opposite sex. I remember a boy in kindergarten who dressed like a girl. She was so sweet and the other children had no problem with it. Another girl identified as a boy and again the kids respected him and I never heard any of these children complain to me they were being teased or bullied.


Love come naturally but hate is taught !

[republianmushroom]

9. Like the posting

[CrispyQ]

15. That's wonderful & reminds me of something a DUer posted a month or so ago.

I thought you'd like it.

Pediatrician and father says 8-year-old girls are the 'highest form of humanity.'

April 10, 2023, 7:06 PM MDT
By Alex Portée

https://www.today.com/parents/pediatrician-milobsky-8-year-old-girls-rcna79050

snip...

Dr. Michael Milobsky has an expert tip: When it comes to being a person, take the lead of 8-year-old girls.

The Colorado-based pediatrician with over 20 years of experience and seven children of his own took to Instagram earlier this month to praise 8-year-old girls as the “highest form of humanity.”

“I spend all day dealing and talking to and interacting with people of all ages,” Milobsky said on an Instagram post before adding, “I just have to say in my own experience as a pediatrician and a parent of seven (that) the highest form of humanity are 8-year-old girls.”

“Eight-year-old girls are magnanimous. They’re sympathetic. They’re empathetic,” he explained enthusiastically. “They’re emotionally mature. They love to help. They love to give. They love to do for others. They’re accepting of everybody. They’re the ones who see the sign for the lost cat and want to go find it.”

~more at link

[NowISeetheLight]

17. Kids

Kids are innocent before their racist, homophobic, anti-Semite, religious fanatic, gun toting parents get ahold of them.