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Prejudice and discrimination in to kill a mockingbird
Prejudice and discrimination in to kill a mockingbird
Prejudice and discrimination in to kill a mockingbird
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Implicit Bias In the novel To Kill A Mockingbird, an innocent man is convicted of a crime simply because the color of his skin. Later, he is shot and killed his death doesn't even make a ripple in the racist community where he lived. This man was a victim of something called implicit bias. Implicit bias occurs when an individual hold subconscious stereotypes about others who are not the same as them whether it be race gender, sexual orientation, and age.
Implicit bias is when an individual hold subconscious stereotypes. The definition of implicit bias is unconscious and unspoken bias. That definition is used in all different kinds of people, other color, gender, age and transgender people. Many different studies have been done and some are still ongoing such as the IAT test. The implicit Association test ( IAT ) is an online test used made by researchers at Harvard University that see
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If a lady walks in and asked for a tool the worker may ask if it is for her husband, if she is buying for herself implicit bias is instantly used about her buying a tool for her husband. Another example would be a lawn care store, a lady walks in and wants to buy a new lawn mower and the worker may say your husband will have an easy job mowing with the lawn mower, but the worker just naturally assumed it was for her husband and not for her.
Implicit bias and age, young kids don't appreciate being treated like young kids, but their maturity levels could be very high and could be the most serious person you ever met. Implicit bias is immediately thought how kids act immature.
Implicit bias and age against old people unable to do things, older people should not use ladders because their judgement is bad, that is implicit bias. When people say older people should drive because their reaction time and sight may be rendered by age, that is implicit bias by saying they can't do things because they are
After reading See No Bias by Shankar Vedantam I have learned that many people are unaware their biases. Mahzarin Banaji took a bias test, now known as the Implicit Association Test and her results stated she had a biased for whites over blacks. She didn’t understand her results because she is a minority too. She did an experiment where she had people picking from a list of unknown names. “The experiment showed how subtle cues can cause errors without people 's awareness.” Millions of people have taking the bias test and large majorities of people showed biases, even if they said they had no biases. The results also showed that minorities had the same biases as the majority groups. For example, “Some 48 percent of blacks showed a pro-white or anti-black bias; 36 percent of Arab
Three students kicked out of a high school for threatening to bring a gun to school. Why would they? Because people were prejudice against them because other students thought they were “losers”. Moral: You shouldn’t not like a person because they aren’t like you. Prejudice was far much worse in the time period of To Kill A Mockingbird. But, Prejudice is the reason for much social injustice. Three characters named Nathan Radley, Atticus Finch, and Aunt Alexandria show us this in the novel, To Kill A Mockingbird.
The Project Implicit, Harvard Education is a non-profit organization that seeks to collect data on an individual’s subconscious chooses. The test that I took was the Race IAT (Implicit Association Test), which measures and shows an individual’s implicit belief and attitudes that one may not be unwilling to admit that they have (Teachman, Nock, 2011). So, this test was an attempt to see if I have biases that I do not really know about. This is interesting and scary at the same time. To have someone basically interpret your thoughts through a series of unrelated responses.
The first Implicit Association Test (IAT) that I took was whether I had a preference for Young people compared to Old people. I chose this IAT because I initially thought that I would have no preference for Young or Old people. Though, I knew I would have some mistakes, I still expected my results to have an equal preference for both young or old people. In addition, this IAT used four categories. The first two categories were images of either a Young or and Old face and the other two categories were the words good or bad. The good or bad categories has at least five words listed.
Some common ethnic stereotypes are derived out of implicit social cognition, also known as implicit bias. The Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity defines implicit bias in their report titled, “Understanding Implicit Bias”. “… Implicit bias refers to the attitudes or stereotypes that effect our understanding, actions, and decisions in an unconscious manner” (“Understanding Implicit Bias”). Stereotypes from implicit bias contrast with others because they are created in one’s subconscious, not necessarily from a palpable event or reason. Implicit biases can become rooted in a person’s subconscious in several different manners. “In addition to early life experiences, the media and news programming are often-cited origins of implicit associations,” says the Kirwan Institute (“Understanding Implicit Bias”). The manner in which the American media portrays specific groups of people influence the implicit biases of the American people. These biases causes people to have feelings or attitudes about other races, ethnicities, age groups, and appearances (“Understanding Implicit
Implicit and explicit biases are related mental constructs. For many years, even dating back to our great’s ancestor, people always have automatic judge people, places, and things. We were all given five senses, knowing how the brain works, we choose to use our conscious actions to judge. Without awareness, we usually act on those judgments. There are two types of judgments consciously and unconsciously.
If a person has an explicit negative outlook toward a specific group or holds prejudicial feelings, more than likely their implicit attitude would also be the same. In turn someone holding these views would have a biased opinion against such a group or person and would discriminate against someone of said group for no reason other than they are a part of the group.
Prejudice is arguably the most prominent theme of the novel. It is directed towards groups and individuals in the Maycomb community. Prejudice is linked with ideas of fear superstition and injustice.
Prejudice has caused more violence than almost anything else in this whole wide world. Prejudice and discrimination still happen till this day. Sometimes children can also be taken away from their innocence with all the horrors of prejudice which is somewhat true in the case of Jem and Scout. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch says, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…until you climb into his skin and walk around in it” (39). People often fail to see a situation from someone else point of view because their opinions are biased. And they don’t really care about others.
Growing up in a very accepting and forward home, I always found myself to be free of most bias. Having been the target of some racial prejudice in the past, I always told myself that I would make sure nobody else had to feel the same way. While this may be a great way to think, it really only covers the fact that you will not have any explicit bias. What I have realized during the course of this class is that implicit bias often has a much stronger effect on us than we might think, and even the most conscious people can be affected.
When children experience gender bias at an early age, not only can affect their development but it can affect their behavior, beliefs, and relationship with others. Children learn by what they see their parents do or what is acted out in their communities. Studies have shown, not only do children experience gender bias at an early age but that they also learn to stereotype as early as the age of three years old.
People these days tend to make assumptions about others based on the criteria such as a person’s clothing or skin. However, people rarely realize that these assumptions can lead to violence and it could end up killing innocent citizens. In another way you can put it is that, prejudice ruins and sometimes even destroys society. It also causes people to lose all understanding for their fellow human. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch says, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…until you climb into his skin and walk around in it” (39). People often fail to examine a situation from someone else view because their opinions are biased. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee shows readers how prejudice causes people to believe in rumors, judge others by their race, and deem the beliefs of others unacceptable.
However, unconscious bias can lead to far subtler, but highly crippling, form of discrimination. It may be the factor in African Americans not being hired, being overlooked for a promotion or becoming the first employees to be terminated in a workforce reduction without any indication that the decision was based on a person’s skin color or ethnic-sounding name.
Wittenbrink, B., & Schwarz, N. (2009). Implicit Measures of Attitudes (Rev Ed.). Secarcus, NJ: Guilford Publications, Inc.
Stereotypes that are associated with a group of older individuals might consist of this particular group being less productive than younger workers within the workplace because of the label attached to their age group. Other aspects that are associated with this group is that they are susceptible to contracting Alzheimer’s disease and they are “boring” or “forgetful”, I feel as though this is the most common stereotype. It is quite unfortunate that this type of discrimination still persists. Though, no act of discrimination should exist or be justified. It is evident that one will follow a social cue to fit in with individuals of a certain group. Author Schaefer mentions that social circumstances provide cues for a person’s attitudes. (Schaefer, 2015. Pg. 38). This notion influences others to act in a particular manner in order to receive a positive or negative reaction from individuals in their proximity. These reactions result from acts or expressions of prejudice. The normative approach, a theory of prejudice, is an exemplification of