The Problem

It should be remembered that older aged cohorts lived their formative years during segregation and racial misunderstandings. According to O’Bryan, Fishbein, and Ritchey (2004), prejudicial teachings on race, AIDS, and obesity mainly came from mothers while fathers were the main source of gender bias teaching, including homophobia. Both parents are about equal in teaching intolerance, according to this article (p. 407). Of course, individuals did not necessarily become prejudiced in their early years, but the media as another socialization agent may have taught them incorrect principles about minority groups, leading them to shelter themselves in their own ethnic enclaves.

     People from varied racial and ethnic backgrounds “don’t understand each other” (Grant, 2004, p 14).Even if older people living in Davis County believe that they are not prejudiced, they still may not know how to work and live with minority members.

Some of the older white residents in Davis County have stated that they purposely isolated themselves from racial minorities. They remember miscegenation laws which forbade interracial marriages (Hollinger, 2003, p. 1363) which lead them to believe in white supremacy. Fortunately, many older individuals have been able to make an adjustment of sorts following the sweeping social changes brought about after the 1954 Supreme Court ruling in Brown versus the Board of Topeka Kansas (Hall, 2005, p. 1233). “It took a monumental civil rights movement, marked by marches, sit-ins, hoses, billy-clubs, beatings, dogs, bombings, murders, arrests and the myriad of memories and rememories one holds of the American Civil Rights Movement to achieve widespread acceptance of the ultimate wrongness of segregation” (Verdun, 2005, p. 67). Anderson (2004) suggests that the Dallas Housing Authority, for an example, refused to follow federal fair housing laws and, therefore, lost federal housing funds for the minority people who needed them. Apparently they blamed the victims for extreme crime rates in the 70s and 80s at the facility even though the Housing Authority did not appropriate funds to maintain the housing project built in 1955 (p. 843).

Some older Davis County people have not been able to embrace diversity and still have difficulty when “one of those people” is in the store or even in the area. Ironically, these often are the people, perhaps on the economic margin themselves, who are the most likely to have to work during their last years to keep food on the table. They may find themselves with lower paying, part-time service jobs right along side the minority people that they distrust. Many of these older whites in Davis County also misinterpret organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Some have stated that they think the NAACP is really communism. They would find it hard to believe that the NAACP is “fighting for the civil rights of individuals regardless of their social race” (Gambler, 2004, p 66).  “Research indicates that Euro-Americans who live side by side with African Americans of the same general economic class in public housing projects are on the whole more friendly, less fearful, and have less-stereotyped views than those who live in segregated arrangements. Merely living together is not the decisive factor. Whether people are jointly active in community enterprises is what counts. The form of the resulting communication is different and makes all the difference in the relationship that develops” (Carr-Ruffino, 2003, p. 122).

De Benoist (1999) claims that there is richness in the diversity of the human race and it came about because various people were relatively isolated from one another. But these differences unfortunately, can be the basis for prejudice and discrimination in all age groups of the US society (p. 29). It appears, however, Reid (2004) suggests that there may be fewer prejudices among the young than other age groups. When asked about “the high level of diversity at Classical High School, students almost seemed to be puzzled. Most responded to questions about race by saying ‘What’s the big deal, anyway?’” (p. 7). However, according to Zirkel (2004), colored students still feel isolated and had less interest in academic work than the white students (p. 57). Guthrie and Springer (2004) suggests that backlash from racially desegregating schools may now be working to send the civil rights movement clear back to Plessy v. Ferguson (p. 5).

.    Wood (2005) suggests that Los Angeles, for an example, is becoming somewhat less racially tense but there is a sense that racism will continue due to an underlying culture that permits deference to some at the expense of others (p. 3).