White children’s early openness to minority peers is later overridden by societal views.

Evidence

Allport rightly dismissed as a post-hoc rationalization people’s justification that their prejudice arose from early traumatic experiences. In his contact theory (see Pettigrew & Tropp, ch. 16 this volume), he elaborated on the other side of the coin, namely the benefits of positive intergroup experiences. However, Allport’s anecdotes about early biracial schooling suggest that though White children freely play with minority children (1954/ 1979, p. 309) and are “interested, curious, and appreciative of differences” (p. 304), they are also becoming aware of societal and parental views that contradict their actions and will eventually override their openness. — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1980 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

John Pendleton Kennedy’s novel Swallow Barn (1832) inaugurated the plantation genre that more or less recycled minstrel-show mammies and Sambos as characters in inebriating novels. … Reading Gilman (but more often, simply observing their parents), southern White children played master, or worse, overseer, with enslaved Black playmates, ordering them, ridiculing them, and tormenting them. Enslaved children took solace in outwitting their free playmates in physical games, such as anything involving running, jumping, or throwing. “We was stronger and knowed how to play, and the white children didn’t,” recalled one ex-slave. In slavery, both Black and White children were building a sense of self on a foundation of racist ideas. — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 455 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Children’s openness to minorities is later overridden by learned societal views — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1980; Children absorbed racist hierarchy by enacting it in play before understanding it — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning: The…, 455

Broader Connections

• Children’s openness to minorities is later overridden by learned societal views #corroborates (1.00) — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1980
• Children absorbed racist hierarchy by enacting it in play before understanding it #complicates (0.75) — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 455