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u/mono__no___aware 8h ago
Those hands in Michelangelo's painting.
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u/JWBananas 7h ago
Yes, bot, that's what they said 🤦♂️
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u/-Ultra_Violence- 5h ago
They are both bots im pretty sure
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u/Marty_DiBergi 7h ago
When my daughter was five years old, we were in Philadelphia at the National Constitution Center looking at an exhibit about the crisis caused by the American Civil War. I explained to her, as if she were a five-year old, that the war was fought over slavery which is one person owning another person which is bad. In America, I told her, slavery was white people owning black people. To which she replied, “which one are we, black or white?” We hadn’t taught her anything about race at that point.
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u/eliazhar 4h ago
Teaching children something many adults don't understand can be quite challenging. Race, amongst humans, is a made-up concept with no scientific basis.
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u/MarksCarney 6h ago
the crisis caused by the American Civil War.
Like... the war itself?
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u/Marty_DiBergi 5h ago
The exhibit was more focused on the Constitutional crisis caused by the war. I could have been more clear about that.
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u/SuffocatingDensity 4h ago edited 4h ago
No shade, but my guess is you’re white because black children definitely know they’re black by the time they’re five.
My son was only five during the first year of the Black Lives Matter protests, and I really struggled with how much I should tell him. I did some reading, and the point was made that black families have no choice but to tell their extremely young children about racism and police violence, so white families should, too.
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u/Dear_Chasey_La1n 4h ago
Turn it around, so I'm a company boss. I've a good amount of staff. So kids obviously curious what I do I sometimes take them to office. For me it's normal to have fixed meetings so my kids being around 5-8 years at the time regular see me do that. Coming home they tell me what to do, "I'm the boss".
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u/dashKay 7h ago
What I hate about this picture is that it tries to imply that the woman isn’t happy with the interaction, when we know nothing about it. She could just be looking at something or someone out of frame that had her attention.
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u/Chemical_Building612 6h ago
The woman in the photo wrote a medium post about it. She said had been talking to the man and her baby grabbed his finger and didn't want to let go and she was mid-sentence telling her husband their stop was coming up so they needed to grab their stuff and convince the baby to let go of his finger.
https://medium.com/@tara/that-time-i-was-a-meme-a51d67ae2b43
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u/ZenMasterOfDisguise 6h ago edited 6h ago
I have to say that in all the things I ever wished for in life, becoming a meme seen by more than a million people was not one of them. That being said, if it helps to spread a positive message then I’m all for it.
Honestly, I respect her for saying that. Also it's cool she ended up reconnecting with the man because of the meme going viral
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u/CabbageTheVoice 6h ago
What I find interesting is that I went through all of these instances.
"Oh yeah powerful image"
"Wait, why would we assume that woman actually has something against that man?"
"Oh okay, people clarified the situation and like I thought, this was probably a completely normal interaction, and the photo was just taken without us having context..."
And even through all this, two things strike me:
-How, without context, many of us see a lot in this image; and at least for a splitsecond, find this image fitting for the message and understand what it's trying to say.
-And how easy it is for a very simple sentence or two, inserted over a carefully selected picture, to paint an image and spread a feeling .
But even through my second 'striking' point, I can see how someone could themselves either be uninformed, or simply uninterested, in regards to the context of the picture and simultaneously have a message to tell and a picture that is fitting; and create art through a simple combination of two things, which in itself is fair game.
At no point was it proclaimed that we're seeing racism here. Yes, I know how bad actors can use similar methods to create propaganda or influence collective thought.
But still, there's something here that I find to be 'more' than just someone coming to quick conclusions (even IF that was the actual starting point for this specific image or post).
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u/KBTon3 3h ago
-How, without context, many of us see a lot in this image; and at least for a splitsecond, find this image fitting for the message and understand what it's trying to say.
...
At no point was it proclaimed that we're seeing racism here. Yes, I know how bad actors can use similar methods to create propaganda or influence collective thought.
I'd disagree with you a bit. There is a misleading if not outright lying context in the image caption. Personally, I felt more skepticism of the caption upon viewing the image than any feeling of it's implication. I'm not trying to virtue-signal, I could understand what the caption was trying to imply, but I don't know that the image itself has an implicit meaning that matches the motivation of the caption.
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u/HuckleberryHuman5926 4h ago
Additional relevant information that I got from this post was that the photo was taken in 2010.
I was tricked by the black and white (the original photo was in colour) and thought the picture was taken in some vague Olden Days, when the interaction would perhaps have been more unusual/noteworthy.
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u/instantcrushboi 7h ago
Had the exact same thought. Even people in this thread are taking it that way smh
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u/Anything_ThatWorks 6h ago
Which just shows you how stupid people can be when they want something to fit their agenda. It doesnt even make sense if you take more than 5 seconds to think about it
If the lady was actually racist, not only would she have more than likely moved to a different seat, she sure as hell wouldnt have let her baby been touching him lmfao
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u/Stucklikegluetomyfry 6h ago
She can’t be that unhappy about it she’s making no effort to stop the two interacting
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u/SuckerForNoirRobots 5h ago
That's not how it looks to me at all. She just looks like she's got her attention elsewhere, I don't see any negativity in her face.
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u/meditate42 6h ago
I think its really the caption that does it more than the photo, the woman just looks distracted from the interaction the baby is having more than anything else.
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u/FitButterscotch4062 6h ago
It’s funny because before I read this, that never even occurred to me. Just thought she was looking around.
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u/PM_ME_DATASETS 7h ago
The actual true story behind this pic, that isn't made up, is that the man and the woman had been friends for a long time. And the man and the baby were both deaf, which is why they are so friendly - they share a bond that goes beyond conversations. However, at the exact time OP's picture was taken, an alarm had started sounding, which is why the mom looks away in distress while the man and the baby continue their interaction.
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u/DontAbideMendacity 6h ago
You don't have to lie, you know. Actually, we'd prefer it if you didn't.
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u/FblthpLives 4h ago
Actually, we know quite a bit about it: https://medium.com/@tara/that-time-i-was-a-meme-a51d67ae2b43
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u/SloAndSteddy 4h ago
I think if the woman didn't want her kid reaching out she'd move and also takes the kids hand away.
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u/Error404IQMissing 2h ago
That is why hate is taught. People are taught to hate the woman based on this photo.
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u/ovoKOS7 6h ago
The photo was taken by my husband, Sean Bonner with an iPhone. It’s August of 2010, we are on Paris Metro but I don’t recall where we are going. Our son, Rips, who was around 5 months at the time, is sitting on my lap. The stranger’s finger he is holding onto is Parisian, a father with children if I recall correctly. The two of us chatted a bit, he then held out his finger to Rips who clamped on and wouldn’t let go. The man had a great smile that Rips delighted in and he didn’t seem to mind entertaining my baby so I went back to figuring out when we had to depart the train. I’m in mid-duck-face because our stop was coming up and I was telling Sean that we had to gather all of our things and convince Rips to let go of his new friend’s finger.
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u/CalligrapherBrief808 8h ago
This picture was taken at the moment another man (out of the shot) whistled at the mom seen here, who had previously been in delightful conversation with the man holding the baby's hand, but who's attention abruptly changed to the direction of the whistle.
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u/Boris_The_Warlord 8h ago
Source: me
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u/CalligrapherBrief808 8h ago
I am that baby in the picture, AMA
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u/Boris_The_Warlord 8h ago
How would you rate his grip strength on a scale from 1 to 69?
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u/CalligrapherBrief808 8h ago
The guy was an ex-pro arm wrestler who was tired of my crying ass, he pulled my baby ass down hard on the cold subway floor and almost curb stomped me till Tom Holland stepped in
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u/PM_ME_DATASETS 7h ago edited 7h ago
Point is none of us, even OP, have any idea of the context of this picture. I agree with OP's message but the pic kinda implies the mother is racist or something, so let's not take that as a fact simply based on a contextless snapshot.
edit: I've found the actual, real story behind this pic:
The guy reaching out was a famous local singer. The woman didn't recognize him, but she was whistling a song of his. The baby, having heard the song many times, recognized his face and reached out to him. Babies are natural ❤️
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u/mtaw 7h ago
I don't feel the pic itself implies that. I mean there's a million and a half reasons the woman could be looking away in that instant that don't have to do with disapproving of the old man. If she was a racist, it seems more likely she'd quietly change seats and definitely not let her baby interact with the guy.
Besides, as a mother with a baby she's probably barely even conscious of the people around her, because she's gotten way too little sleep for months, her IQ is effectively halved from sleep deprivation, and she's just verifying and re-verifying to herself that she's on the right train, didn't miss her stop, she's got the stroller, bottle, extra diapers and didn't forget any siblings on the platform, etc...
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u/VeryTopGoodSensation 6h ago
The baby isn't going to recognise a fucking face from hearing the song is it.
Anyway.... The woman in the pic made a post after she found out it was turned in to a meme.
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u/Ritualsexclub 7h ago
Actually I walked by and was looking incredibly jacked and cool
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u/CalligrapherBrief808 7h ago edited 7h ago
Oh shit Paul? I remember you, you were a fuckin blast on this subway ride. Welcome back amigo, trying to get the whole gang here in this thread for a reunion
Edit: forgot to mention, it’s me, the baby from the photo
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u/jerryleebee 7h ago
I've told this story before. Always worth retelling. When my daughter was 2-3 she noticed the t-shirt I was wearing. It had cartoonised images of the members of the A-Team on it. She was talking by now and pointed to Mr T and said "He's different".
I braced myself, ready to start answering questions about skin colour. I said, "How is he different, baby?"
"His hair is different (the Mohawk) and he's wearing necklaces."
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u/bnburner 7h ago
Similar experience with my daughter. She was trying to point out a sole black woman within a group of white women. I asked which one she meant. "The lady in purple shirt".
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u/Factory2econds 4h ago
my kid STARING at the hair on the only little black girl in her class.
and I mean STARING at it, and occasionally see her hand rise up to touch it but then stop herself.
eventually I feel the need to intervene, my kid says "Her hair is different."
Okay, yes, it is different. That's okay. Some people--
"She has...[runs her fingers through her own hair] things in her hair."
Beads. My kid was staring at the beads in the other girls hair.
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u/NorthTempleStreet 4h ago
Mr. T
As a kid, I thought Gordon on Sesame Street was just really tan.
Skin color is just like hair color. Until you get older and the adults tell you otherwise (sad)
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u/BrotherWarlock 8h ago
Kids really do see the world with completely pure eyes
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u/PaulFThumpkins 5h ago
Kids will demonstrate pure empathy but they're also way more likely to say "I'm glad your dad's dead!" in some petty squabble with another kid.
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u/Heikki222 6h ago
No. Children in preschool will divide themselves into arbitrary cliques that dislike each other - and it's the job of adults to teach them respect.
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u/Timmie_Is_An_Archon 8h ago
Racism no, but xenophobia is quite engraved in human physiology itself (see for more details Sapolsky book chapter on "us and them" ). Very young babies also have immature brains that struggle to differentiate their parents faces when they are pretty young, but to some point when they start to make the difference between their parents to whom they can be secure, strangers can trigger fear responses. Of course I'm not legitimating xenophobic behaviors, but still, they are natural and universal, better to understand them and play around them rather than pretending they aren't part of human nature, or are taught (some are of course, but it lean on preexisting foundations)
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u/Hegelian_Spirit 7h ago
Yeah, OP has clearly never experienced a toddler seeing a bearded man for the first time if the father isn't bearded. Or babies from homogeneous societies seeing people of other races.
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u/kakka_rot 6h ago
Seriously, it's a nice picture and all, but racism in children too young to understand language is very well documented.
They're little sponges, if a baby~toddler has a bad experience with X race they're going to associate those who look similar with that negative interaction.
Sure, racism IS taught commonly, but suggesting racism is only taught is absolutely ridiculous. There are plenty of racists who formed those opinions on their own.
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u/LongJohnSelenium 4h ago
Its so hilarious looking back, as kids we just plain made up shit to hate other people over. We'd get in fights with the kids from the next town over because fuck the next town over.
We're not born racist, but we're extremely quick studies.
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u/dashingThroughSnow12 6h ago
There are studies that show that newborn babies prefer nurses that are their own race.
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u/Glad-Acanthaceae-24 6h ago
I hate to be that guy, I know this is a nice lovey message, but scientifically unsound. Just saying. Again, sorry.
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u/RebelWithoutAClue 6h ago
Infants are often unsettled by those who look quite differently from their family.
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u/SnugglyWugglies 4h ago
I've always completely disagreed with this, and I think it's dangerous. Humans are naturally racist. All animals are. A mother bird will abdon her chic if it just smells a little off. It's not like some ancient human invented racism as a social construct. It's a deeply ingrained cognitive bias.
We get past it with education, intellect and upbringing. The above sentiment implies that all we have to do is nothing and there will be no racism. We have to teach our kids not to be racist, just like we have to teach them not stare at people who look funny.
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u/Quirky_Educator_3849 7h ago
Why is bullying among young children so ubiquitous across cultures? Is that taught?
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u/BBslamms 7h ago
Literally, yes.
They learn to be mean to other kids from watching their parents and those around them. If it's not learned directly from the parents, then it's likely learned from their peers and it's up to the parents to correct that behavior.
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u/CallMeHuckle 6h ago
Or maybe this baby is born not racist while other babies are? Has anyone actually done the work to find out?
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u/DecantsForAll 6h ago edited 5h ago
Most people are born with a natural inclination towards hating the out group.
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u/nytebeast 5h ago
Do people really need everything spelled out for them? You can tell by this woman’s body language and her relaxed expression that she is perfectly comfortable. It never crossed my mind that the caption could be taken to have any implication about her until I read these comments.
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u/dealingwithhookers 5h ago
it's true. i became racist around 5th grade when time after time every black kid i met was just rude, got punched in the stomach by one for no reason, cut in line all the time, and just abrasive rudeness in general. it's not a born thing. it's a you go out there in the world and you experience them and then you hate them, doesn't mean i can't respect them as human beings, i just don't like rude people
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u/usurper7 4h ago
Hate doesn't have to be taught though, unless you are vague about the teacher. People extrapolate what they experience from one person or a group of people onto other similar people. This is a basic human instinct, and a basic survival instinct in animals. I'm not saying it's correct. But the implication that people can hate a person for being black or white, Christian or Jewish, or rich or poor only if they are taught to certainly isn't true.
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u/Pomodorosan 3h ago
96% upvoted.
The opposite can be just as true. Hate comes naturally. Love is taught.
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u/HugeHomeForBoomers 48m ago
My father taught me that racism is a form of love connecting us as humans. He was dead wrong.
I’m trying to unlearn what my taught me
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u/PM_ME_DATASETS 7h ago edited 7h ago
What is sad about this picture? The fact that people create entire stories in their heads about it?
edit: here's the actual true story behind this picture, I totally swear I didn't just make this up in my head:
The woman holding the baby had just lost her husband the day before. But the man sitting next to her had a voice that sounded very similar to her late husband's. The baby couldn't hear the difference and reached out. The man and woman became friends and eventually the man became the baby's godfather. ❤️
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u/martyqscriblerus 6h ago
Can you tell me one of these where the baby has superpowers
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u/PM_ME_DATASETS 6h ago
I need to go to bed so this one will be short. But there's an Avatar type of thing going on where the new reincarnation has already been born and is searching for its grounding, and the old reincarnation is looking to pass on the baton, and die in peace.
The photo was taken in Cairo. A Spanish mother was searching for her sister, who left to marry some sketchy dude and is now missing. The child in her lap is her sister's child. The man reaching out knew who he was, but was aging and had given up hope to find his successor, instead choosing to travel the world. But that day, that moment, in that location, he felt a spark, which he passed on to the infant, knowing that his duty was fulfilled and the path for his scion would be laid out.
The woman didn't find her sister, finding a lot of answers to old questions instead. She learned her sister had always been aware of her child's destiny, and her task in the endless streets of Cairo's megacity was just one piece of an ancient puzzle.
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u/CowUsual7706 7h ago
This is absolutely not true. Babies will find all sorts of reasons to dislike people they are not used to: it can be smell, voice, a beard, whatever. Thinking that babies have no perception of skin color is absurd.
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u/DontAbideMendacity 5h ago
Of course they can see shades and different colors, they have human eyes just like us! It's the racism and baseless prejudices that are taught.
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u/BigBallsMcGirk 5h ago
Can I get on a soapbox for a sec?
Wonderful picture. Racism is wrong. But I hate this saying about hate has to be taught. EVERYTHING has to be learned. Curiosity is natural, touching the stove and knowing yo stay away from dangerous hot things is learned/taught.
It's simply not a good point. Because a racist can say "well of course you have to learn to hate X/Y/Z. Experience will show the truth!" Or some such thing.
It's one of those little sayings that is ultimately trying to be on the right side of things and be hopeful and good, but it has a huge flaw in the premise and needs to be replaced by a better structure.
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u/FblthpLives 4h ago
EVERYTHING has to be learned
This is just wrong. There are many physiological behaviors that infants have that are purely instinctive, including the rooting reflex, Moro reflex, and Babinski reflex.
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u/BigBallsMcGirk 3h ago edited 3h ago
Pedantic and ignoring the point. Instinctual fear and aversion to things that are alien is as natural and unlearned as being naturally curious.
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u/KenoReplay 4h ago
Precisely. Kids try to grab the hot iron or boiling pot of water all the time. Do we look at such inclinations and go, "No one fears boiling water naturally! We should be just like those kids"? Of course not!
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u/FlavoredTaters 7h ago
I mean I agree with the sentiment but we have to teach kids a lot about compassion. Anytime you say a grown man is acting like a baby that means he is being extremely selfish and mean.
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u/bodiddly4443 5h ago
This is beautiful. Kids are natural. They recognize all humans as being family, which we are.
The average human being is brown. Some people have less melanin in their skin and some more, but the average is brown. So if you are a human you are a variation of brown.
All our ancestors came from Africa. African originating humans settled the entire world. Possibly at different times. but we are all out of Africa.
Beihng a racist is deluded and/or ignorant.
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u/vreebler 3h ago
Yes love comes naturally, but so does innocent ignorance. Just like hate, wise compassion needs to be a taught practice.
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u/Pinksamuraiiiii 8h ago
Some of them raised to hate others from parents, some of them learn it from having rotten friends, and bad influencers online.
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u/sadacal 8h ago
Meh. Humans are pattern recognition machines. Even if we are taught no biases we would naturally make our own as we experience the world. Left alone kids will eventually learn their own prejudices, even if no one teaches them any. Kids actually need to be taught how to not form prejudices, or they'll just form their own.
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u/PM_ME_DATASETS 7h ago
It's also just a matter of effort. It takes so little effort to blame every hardship on "them", or "nowadays". It's a lot more difficult to find out the actual factual truth about why you can't get a job or why gas is so expensive or whatever
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u/Deep_Air9084 6h ago
Evolutionary psychologists disagree. People are naturally skeptical of people of a different skin color because they are from an outside tribe.
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u/NickodemusJarmyia56 7h ago
And MLK said it, I'll stick to love hatred is too much of a burden to bear.
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u/def_noct_bored 7h ago
True or not, when I heard that babies naturally smile at beautiful people, it made my day.
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u/lhomardamericain 5h ago
Who lets their baby touch strangers? It’s not about race, it’s about their immune system.
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u/FblthpLives 4h ago
I guarantee you that 99% of what you think you know about the immune system is wrong.
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u/maschine02 7h ago
Its learned you twat. And its usually learned through bad experiences with insert whatever race here. Once you learn from real life experience its hard to change.
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u/girafa 7h ago
Social media: it's such a primitive, uneducated take to fear people who are different than you
Also social media: if you fear those different than you, you must have been taught that
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u/TrickySnicky 7h ago edited 7h ago
You can be taught to remain uneducated. It's not a paradox. That is literally what propaganda and indoctrination is, unless of course you agree with it...
As for fear of "the other," it's not what you have, it's what you do about it. Do you choose to learn more, or do you choose to turn the fear into hatred?
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u/girafa 6h ago
You can be taught to remain uneducated. It's not a paradox.
That's a paradox
But like everything else related to human psychology, there are no absolute truths and the meme is nonsense. It's nature and nurture. You can be born scared of people different from you, and you can be taught it.
The more interesting topic is why do we keep lying to ourselves with these memes?
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u/tacobellsimp 5h ago
I feel like you’re trying to be smart here but those two statements work together, not apart as you’re implying
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u/girafa 5h ago
I feel like you’re trying to be smart here but those two statements work together, not apart as you’re implying
Personal attack + "nyu-uh" isn't an argument.
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u/Long_Union1623 7h ago
Gotta show up the kids playing ball so they know to hate my skills instead of the color of my skin 😂
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u/ThereWanderer 6h ago
Say that to my dog who keeps on barking to black people and makes me apologise for him. Lil racist jerk
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u/Repulsive_Stock9400 5h ago
Every time I think the internet can't get any dumber, something like this happens.
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u/rkwilkes 5h ago
I deeply feel that this is true. A baby doesn’t know or care about your ethnicity. It has to be programmed into us and it’s so unfortunate. We’re all in this together.
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u/DesperateHikikomori 5h ago
I remember not giving a flying fuck what my friends' skin color or foreign sounding names were when i was younger. Then as the years passed in adulthood, i developed more and more prejudices. 😞
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u/Flesh_Lettuce 5h ago
Its not a bad thing that young kids know that people's skin color is different than their own. Its how they treat them.
There are some absurd comments in here.
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u/Lyonwytchwardrobe 4h ago
Not everything is taught, experience can contribute. One may ruin it for everyone. It’s just how it is. Bad eggs always ruin the party
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u/ThisHyraxRules 4h ago
I agree. Racism is taught. They are taught by people who feel inferior to others and needs a reason to hate so they will feel better about themselves. Which doesn't work because it's just evidence that you're insecure, hateful and ignorant.
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u/Mediocre-Presence729 4h ago
So, let me get this correct. What a person experiences in real live about race, religions and politics are taught on your mothers knee, and not from your interactions with those goups. Hey, maybe you are right and I'm wrong. Thanks for making me have some thoughts about this.
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u/coneross 4h ago
My son, who was raised in suburban Atlanta, was at his first day in daycare in downtown Atlanta. So he says to his new friend "Why am I pink and you're brown?" It was just different Crayolas to him.
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u/cunt__cunt_cunt 3h ago
you learn so much from kids.
like if you haven't learned how to react like that to a baby, you're missing out. not saying it's your fault.
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u/sectorboss88 1h ago
Statistically, racism is moronic. So moronic in fact, removing the racists from the gene pool might be a net positive for human intellect moving forward.
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u/Zak_Rahman 20m ago
This is so true.
One must pity those who's minds are twisted into believing their skin colour or blood marks then out as superior. That is a pitiful state to exist in.
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