We’ve been told repeatedly that logic will rarely overturn belief, and there is no shortage of personal and collective evidence that this is quite true. Yet on rare occasions, there is enough success to keep people from giving up on making logical arguments altogether. Why does the deep subconscious find an “implanted” belief so compelling that it will fight tooth and nail against logical presentations presented to the conscious self that utterly undermine it?

This is the power of belief to hold sway against any onslaught. It is people being true to their convictions, which is another way of describing a well-entrenched belief set they are unwilling to go against. This is how humans are made, to have a foundational structure accumulated through learning but providing a framework that is unchangeable, and that stability has value in allowing consistency of thought and behavior when based on sound ideas. The problem here is not that beliefs are difficult to oppose, but that so many people have developed false beliefs, a kind of lie that has been taught them surreptitiously through an inner manipulation of the mind, that there are significant and meaningful differences between races, that there is hatred of one’s race by another, and that you should fear members of other races because you are in danger from acts of discrimination and even violent confrontation. This is not only programmed into people as deep inner beliefs, but those who are conditioned and cultivated to hold extreme beliefs about another race will, at the same time, be manipulated relentlessly with propaganda to act on those beliefs, to commit acts of discrimination, and to show dislike, resentment, and loathing and adopt a superior tone and arrogance while doing it. Members of a race targeted in this way will understandably have a human reaction to oppose it as being unfair, but they too will be subjected to relentless programming to ramp up fear as well as anger at the unfair treatment, and this creates a powder keg situation only needing a spark to ignite an explosion that could lead to acts of violence, and on a widespread basis erupting into rioting and worse. So both racist views and the reaction to racist views lead to trouble if they are embraced and believed in categorically, so the victim of racism quite typically develops a corresponding prejudice against their oppressors. This is never universal, so race becomes a symbol for inhumane treatment through association but is never total, and this puts the lie to any would-be answer to racial discrimination that treats the perceived oppressor categorically and all its members as being evil—that falls into the trap set by the interlopers. By cultivating beliefs creating racial prejudice, both sides, both perpetrators and victims alike, will be mirror images of one another with their respective prejudices when what is needed is a coming together, a joining of hands in unity to work towards becoming truly members of the human family appreciating and respecting one another as human beings in a way that transcends appearance, social status, or ethnic background.