Racism Today - Brian Wier

I wasn't born yet during the heyday of the civil rights movement in the 60's, so I can't really say from experience or with any authority about what attitudes about racism in the south used to be. I can only talk about what I've read in books or seen and heard in the media, but my lack of experience with racism during its time when it was institutional is my talking point for the day. Everyone born after the civil rights movement, especially the current generation hasn't experienced racism in the same way as the generations before us. Because we never lived in a time where racism was "acceptable," racist attitudes have never been a part of our life as they would be for our parents and grandparents' generations. Sure, racism still exists and will probably never disappear entirely, but the racism is definitely no longer the social norm.

In my English class last semester, I read a book called Generation Me by Jean Twenge. Throughout the book, Twenge discusses the differences between generations and the reasons for these differences, and one the topics she discusses is the current generation's openness to diversity. As I have talked about, Twenge says that we learn our attitudes from a combination of society and our parents. Many of our parents may still harbor racist attitudes, which explains the existence of racist attitudes in our generation, but given today's society, which preaches equality for races, religions, sexual orientations, etc., our generation has definitely learned to be more open minded to others.

So to respond to the original question, I can't tell you about racism around the time of the civil rights movement, but I can say with confidence that racist attitudes are much rarer now. Racist attitudes used to be "acceptable" in the south, but that is no more the case.