Page 8 - My FlipBook

the country. But how can a country like the United States, whose
founders spoke of seeking individual freedom and liberty, carry such a

legacy of discrimination and pain? Many believe that racism is actively
passed down from generation to generation. Others, like Jennifer
Richeson, a social psychologist from Yale University, believe that
racism is learned from the culture as a whole. “The truth is that unless
parents actively teach kids not to be racists, they will be. This is not

the product of some deep-seated, evil heart that is cultivated,” she
said in 2017. “It comes from the environment, the air all around us.”
6
Particular outbursts of racism are

often fueled by sudden change or
“This is not the product by tragedy, and several such events
of some deep-seated, took place in the early decades
evil heart that of the twenty-first century in the
is cultivated. It comes United States.
from the environment, One of these events occurred
the air all around us.” 6
on September 11, 2001. That
– Jennifer Richeson, morning, nineteen men, who
Yale University
would later be identified as Muslim
extremists, hijacked four airliners
soon after they departed from
airports on the East Coast. With their destinations in California, each
aircraft carried a heavy load of fuel. The terrorists crashed two of the

planes into the twin World Trade Center towers in New York City. The
impact and subsequent explosion and fire damaged the buildings
enough that they then collapsed. A total of 2,753 people, including

firefighters and law enforcement personnel, were killed in the New
York attacks. The hijackers flew the third plane into the exterior of
the Pentagon in Washington, DC, where 184 people were killed.
The fourth hijacked plane crashed in a field outside of Shanksville,

14