Nurture Causes Prejudice

Throughout the history of the United States, there has been racism. Even though the Civil Rights movement was a success, people still have bitter feelings towards other races. The question of why there is racism is often left out of many history texts, as they seem to focus on the different wars of our time instead. However, the question of why racism exists is a very important one, as racism has been causes of many of the problems throughout history and today, such as the Civil War or the War in Iraq. In Howard Zinn's book: A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present, he explores the different reasons of why racism exists and how it may be stopped if possible. The big debate about racism is nature versus nurture, whether we are born racist, or whether people, events around us cause the problem. Zinn believes that nurture is the cause of racism, and the researcher agrees with this statement. He explains in the chapter how legal problems, economics, fear of rebellion are all main factors in causing racism. What Zinn doesn't mention, but what the researcher thinks is also important is religion was a main factor as well.

Many of the laws that were enforced in the colonial times contributed to racism. Before these laws began to pop up, the colonies were in turmoil. The Virginians were in their starving period and were desperate for food. They needed labor quickly to make enough food to survive. The Virginians were so desperate in fact, that during 1609-1610, they would dig up graves and eat the corpses. Many of these colonists were not fit to work in fields, John Smith declared a sort of martial law to organize the colonists into work gangs and forced them in the fields for survival. When the slaves started rolling in, laws began to pop up about the slaves, despite the fact that slavery was