Racism in America is an issue deeply rooted in our history that continues to infiltrate society. In response to the hate crimes and horrific events taking place in the United States, companies and institutions are beginning to train their employees in diversity.

According to the Journal of Business and Psychology, diversity training is defined as any program designed to facilitate positive intergroup interaction, to reduce prejudice and discrimination, and to generally teach individuals who are different from others how to work together effectively. With the intention of bridging divisions between people, diversity training has a progressive society’s best interests at heart. But the question becomes, is diversity training enough to combat prejudice, racism and other discriminatory practices that plague our country?

Here at St. Thomas, acts of racism have been all too common in the last two years, leaving a mark of hatred on campus. The university, as well as students and staff, has commented on these events, and the entire community is working to prevent these incidents from occurring.

In the midst of progress and healing, a voice in the back of my mind keeps nagging, asking, “How can we possibly change people’s deepest beliefs and prejudices that have likely been present since childhood?”

The importance of diversity training is something I would never undermine, but I think that we could be doing so much more.

Greater Good Magazine from Berkeley states much of our most important emotional and interpersonal learning occurs during our first few years of life. These first years are crucial to forming basic perceptions on yourself as well as the people around you. The developing brain is shaped by the people most central to a child’s life, so most of this shaping occurs at home with family, explaining why many people end up with similar political and religious views as their parents.

Along with family, teachers have a strong influence on a child’s upbringing. Teachers have the power to instill beliefs that might not be taught at home. For instance, if a child doesn’t have a supportive home life, the valuable life lessons and skills that they are missing can be supplemented by their elementary schooling.

Diversity training and lessons on acceptance should be a part of school curriculum. These types of teachings are arguably more important than anything else you can learn in school. We should first and foremost be concerned with raising kind and understanding human beings. The way we treat others should be our top priority.

I believe that diversity training should start with children, not when a person is grown up and established in their beliefs. We should start teaching kids how to respect other people and understand that we all have differences.

Children who receive negative attitudes and prejudices from their parents can potentially learn lessons from their teachers and peers that will challenge the experiences from their home lives. If the only discussion of race and diversity is at home, kids may not have enough exposure, especially if underlying prejudice exists. They need to have contact hours, or hours spent dedicated to instruction on a certain topic within the classroom, identifying how important these lessons are.

We need to start making a difference in our community. We claim that we all stand against racism, so why not start making institutional changes that target racism at its roots?

We need to emphasize that everyone is equal, no matter their background, race, ethnicity or culture. Hopefully, by going in depth and giving interactive lessons on what diversity means, we can avoid prejudice from taking root.

We are currently trying to change a person’s beliefs when those beliefs have been instilled for so many years, and for most people, are more of a reflex than anything else. We may not realize we have internal prejudices because they have been with us throughout our lives.

By educating students when they are young, we can make it clear to future generations that acceptance of all people is the only thing we are willing to tolerate in this country.

We should be doing whatever we can to prevent incidents like the ones happening at St. Thomas and in the United States. While we might not be able to easily change people’s beliefs once they’ve been formed, it is worth trying to prevent racist ideas from developing in the first place.

Grace Hallen can be reached at hall2306@stthomas.edu.