Susan B Konig They Ve Got To Be Carefully Taught Summary

In Susan B. Konig’s essay “They’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught” she uses her personal experiences to explain how we are taught at a very young age to focus on the differences between us instead of on what we have in common. Konig explains how her daughters teacher was teaching her class how each race and ethnicity is different and ignoring the fact that their connection to their ethnicity can only be found in how they look. This taught the children to look no further than the outward appearance of the people around them, building a foundation for possible future racism. Although today's society supposedly discourages racism, it encourages racial diversity, creating defined lines separating people based solely on their appearance and heritage,

which is the bases of racism.
Racism is based on the differences in the outward appearance of people, which occur when people are taught to look only at what they can physically see, without taking the time to understand the true character underneath their appearance.

In today's society, racism, at times, has created major problems. Whether those problems are similar to the race riots in Ferguson, Missouri, in August of 2014, or the recent police shootings, racism has stained America’s culture with the blood of those who are different. The Ferguson riots is an example of what happens when people are taught to look no further than the surface. The spark that engulfed the city of Ferguson into a raging race riot was the shooting of a black (Michael Brown) by a white (police officer, Darren Wilson). Those who participated in the riots often resorted to violence in belief that it would help. They vandalized, looted, arsoned, and destroyed the streets and shops of the city. The only result they

obtained was 10 people and 6 officers injured, while 321 people were arrested. These people acted out in violence believing that it was the only way to fix their problem. When in reality the only way to fix the problem was to step back, think before act, and realize that one incident does not define a race. The riots resulted causing more harm then good for not only the city but also the cause. The rioters at Ferguson believed that by protesting they would be able to change how the nation see their race. They not only failed in their attempt to accomplish this, they reinforced the racist stereotypes that they were protesting against. The only reasonable and possible solution to their problem is to destroy the walls we have built up dividing American based on their looks and race.
People fight, they riot, protest, and some even go as far as murder in the name of racism.

People willing believe that racism is something that people pick up along the way as they grow up. No one will ever admit that the problem of racism is rooted in how we teach our children how to see the people around them, nor will anyone confess that what makes us different is was makes us American. When we teach our children about what makes them different from their friends, we are teaching them to see people with differing ethnicities/races from their own as a culture/race instead of as a person. When we, as a culture and society, focus on what makes us different based on how we looked we fail to take into account that people are more than what we see on the outside. The only way to end racism is to change how we see the people around

us.
The end of racism will come when we stop teaching our children the differences between their ethnicities and start teaching the heritage of every nation that is represented within American society. Through the act of teaching children what makes them different we are raising a nation of racists. Although those who support racial diversity believe that by teaching our children what makes them different it will help them grow up to be culturally aware. What these people fail to see is that this ‘cultural awareness’ that is developing actually goes by the title of racism. The only way to raise a non-racist nation is to teach our children how what makes each nationality special instead of different, and without excluding any race, religion, or ethnicity. America is the home to multiple ethnicities and nations from around the world we should be teaching our children to embrace the cultures represented instead of emphasizing the differences between each culture.
Konig highlights how today's education is teaching our children to focus on what makes them different from one another then what makes them unique in heritage but the same in value. Against popular belief the practice of emphasizing cultural diversity doesn't discourage racism but instead promotes it. By constantly defining the traits that make people different we are building walls that make it nearly impossible to see people for who they are instead of where they are from. Konig’s essay, “They’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught,” drives home the idea that teaching children cultural diversity is actually teaching them to become racists when they grow up.