Black and White

Can people really change their fundamental beliefs? I'm prompted to ask this question by the testimony of one of the accused in the Stephen Lawrence trial. Now, I'm obviously not going to comment on the trial itself or speculate as to the guilt or innocence of the accused, but I have been struck by one particular development. Despite being confronted with secretly filmed footage of himself using racist language and describing violent acts he would allegedly like to perpetrate against racial minorities, one of the defendants has denied being a racist, claiming the incident filmed represented youthful bravado, as he tried to impress his friends. Which raises the interesting question of does the use of racist language actually make one a racist, or can we ever just pass it off as a momentary lapse, brought on by extreme circumstances? Wasn't that Ron Atkinson's defence? It's possible in cases, like Atkinson's, which involve older people, that the use of such language can be explained as a lapse back to a less progressive era in which they grew up, when such terminology wasn't recognised as being offensive.

But the defendant in the trial is much younger. It could be that his use of racist language reflects the environment in which he grew up - much as Mel Gibson's drunken anti-Semitic outburst was hardly surprising when set in the context of his father's religious beliefs, such things can become deeply ingrained in the psyche and emerge under stress - but his parents seem perfectly decent people. Could someone who did once hod such views so radically change them over a period of time? I don't deny the possibility. However, such changes in fundamental beliefs are usually the result of some life-changing , often traumatic event, making them fairly rare. That said, I'd like to believe that human nature isn't immutable, that people can change their beliefs and become better people for it. After all, what hope can there be for any of us if this isn't so? But I still find such extreme journeys, from racism to non-racism, difficult to comprehend. There's still a part of me that thinks 'a leopard never changes its spots', and that the use of racist language always reflects some deeper belief system rather than simple ignorance. But things are rarely that clear cut. Unlike in soap operas, where characters can completely change their established personalities, with little or no explanation. Like Derek Branning in Eastenders, for instance, who squares away his racist past, (when he was plated by a different actor), by simply remarking that prison changed him. Which I take to mean that he spent three years in a cell taking it up the jacksie from a large black man - and enjoying it. If that doesn't constitute a life-changinng and traumatic experience, I'm not sure what would.