My friends and I went to Ireland for St. Patricks day. We were all hanging out, getting ready, and pregaming when Syd asked if anyone knew the story behind the holiday we flew to another country to celebrate. Of course, all we knew was that there was the St. Patrick and he was honored after he died with this holiday. We had no clue about why he was special and what the heck shamrocks had to do with anything! Later, we learned that St. P basically used to use the three-leaved shamrock to explain the Holy Trinity to the Irish pagans.

During this very educational pregame, Ali asked if I, who normally asks the most random but makes you wonder, questions, had a QOD. Question of the day. After a silent pause, I responded with “do you believe that because we teach children racism and discrimination, that’s why it is still present?”. After a couple moments of silence, Ali responded with an amazing answer. She said even if we didn’t teach racism and discrimination it wouldn’t matter because the older generations that have the hate will pass it on.

I am very on the fence with this issue, because I can see both sides. I think that on one side it can go one of two ways. If you continue to teach children about racism and discrimination, it will either raise awareness to the children that people are different and they start to discriminate, or that hopefully they will be smart enough to understand that it was a major part of history that should be learned from and not repeated. Whereas, on the other hand, there is still the possibility that the children will start to pick up on the old ways from the elders that still have hate in their hearts. But maybe if we don’t teach the history behind the segregation there is always the slight chance that children will grow up colorblind to all other humans.

Is teaching children about racism making them racist?