Racism, as with many forms of discrimination, has plagued the world since the beginning of recorded history. How is it that human nature has been able to overcome so many intellectual and technological barriers over the millennia, but even in the 21st century are unable to severely weaken the destructive effects of racism? In the recent past it appears we humans have had more of a hard-line stance towards racism, calling people out on racial comments and making racism illegal. Basically we've publicly made racism a very big deal. This seemed to be a good thing, and although the negative effects of racism in society have declined quite notably throughout the 20th century, recent decades have not witnessed much of a decline at all in both the nature and regularity of issues based on racism.
What society needs is a slight mental shift. The more people begin to reject the relevance of racism and are able to identify race baiting, the quicker racism will begin to fade. In other words, as Morgan Freeman said in an interview with Mike Wallace from 60 minutes:
Mike Wallace: “How are we going to get rid of racism...?”
Morgan Freeman: “Stop talking about it. I’m going to stop calling you a white man. And I’m going to ask you to stop calling me a black man. I know you as Mike Wallace, you know me as Morgan Freeman.”
