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Prejudice is a preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience
Define prejudice. journal essay
Examples of racism and discrimination
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Before discrimination comes prejudice, but what do these two words really entail? Prejudice is a negative attitude held towards members of a group and discrimination is the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people, especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex. Discrimination. (2017). Oxford Dictionary. Retrieved on October 2, 2017 from the World Wide Web: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/discrimination. In today’s society there are many more than these three types of discrimination; other forms include disability, equal pay/ compensation, harassment, sexual harassment, skin color, religion, and national origin just to name a few. In 1954, Gordon Allport, articulated five steps in which people behave negatively towards people of a different ethnic group, this is known as explicit bias. Explicit bias refers to the attitudes we have about a person or group on a conscious level. These five steps go as follows: verbal antagonism, avoidance, segregation, physical attack, and extermination. National Research Council. (2004). Measuring Racial Discrimination. Retrieved from https://www.nap.edu/read/10887/chapter/7. …show more content…
Avoidance entails choosing to not interact with another racial group besides your own. Segregation occurs when people exclude members of a different racial group from different resources. Physical attacks happen when a member of one racial group attacks a member of a different racial group out of dislike and/ or hatred and extermination is the elimination of a person or group of a different racial group. On the other hand there is implicit bias; implicit bias is when we have attitude towards people or associate stereotypes with them without our conscious
Prejudice is an unfavorable opinion or feeling, formed beforehand (e.g., before even meeting a person) based on non-personal characteristics (e.g., skin color, religious, gender). One form of prejudice is racism. Racism is negative attitudes and values held by people about other people based on their race. It is this attitude which causes one to discriminate against another. Discrimination is treating people unfavorably on the basis of race, color or sex. Prejudice and discrimination were prevalent in the 1950s and 1960s. This era was a time of hatred, a time of violence, a time when black people were colonized by the white colonizer, and it was a time of white-on-black racial violence. Because of this hatred, the whites discriminated against the blacks.
Discrimination that assumes one race is better than another race and environment that serves different treatment for each race can be said as an implementation of racism. For example, the clearest irregular border between races happened in educational and economic opportunity, politic, health, and social mobility of people in US in 1920s.
Across the nation, millions of Americans of all races turn on the television or open a newspaper and are bombarded with images of well dressed, articulate, attractive black people advertising different products and representing respected companies. The population of black professionals in all arenas of work has risen to the point where seeing a black physician, attorney, or a college professor are becoming more a common sight. More and more black people are holding positions of respect and authority throughout America today, such as Barack Obama, Colin Powell, Condelezza Rice and many other prominent black executives. As a result of their apparent success, these black people are seen as role models for many Americans, despite their race. However, these groups of black people are exceptions to the rule and consist of only a tiny fraction of all black Americans. These black people in turn actually help to reinforce the inequality of black Americans by allowing Americans of other races to focus on their success. A common thought is, "They made it, why can't you do the same?" The direct and truthful answer to that question is Racism.
Prejudice, the act of judging someone based on outward appearance or social standing. In the 1960’s Harper Lee wrote a book called To Kill a Mockingbird, about prejudice and how hard the times were. In To Kill a Mockingbird, there are many examples of prejudice showing how morally wrong it was. There are several examples of prejudice in the book: Tom Robinson because he is African American, Boo Radley because of his standing in their society, and the Cunningham Family because of how poor they were. The following paragraphs will discuss these examples.
According to Martin N. Marger (Race & Ethnic Relations, Martin N. Marger, 1991) discrimination, stereotypes and prejudice can all be closely defined in a similar way. Discrimination in Race and Ethnic Relations is defined as “negative actions against a group, aimed at denying its members equal access to societal rewards” and prejudice is defined as “a generalized belief usually inflexible or unfavorable, applied to members of a particular group.” Both of these terms relate to aspects of a particular group and stereotypes is more individual and is mainly a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing.
The word prejudice is derived from the Latin word " praejudicium" and refers to prejudging without any factual evidence. Being prejudiced usually means having preconceived beliefs about groups of people or cultural practices. Discrimination is the "differential and unequal treatment of other groups of people, usually along racial, religious or ethnic lines." The distinction is that prejudice then refers to people's attitudes and beliefs, and discrimination to their overt behavior directed at another group. (Parrillo 76)
Many people know what prejudice and discrimination are, but some of us do not. Prejudice is known as the attitude which includes behavioral, cognitive and affective. This attitude is incorrect and is not justified because it usually deals with negative thoughts of a person. These thoughts can be based on any reasons, for example, it could be because of their social class, race, gender, sexuality, or anything else. Discriminitation on the other hand, is very similar, but involves taking action because of those thoughts. There have been many different types of discrimination, but the main one's are racial, age, and gender discrimination.
Stereotyping, discrimination and prejudice are phenomena that motivate animated debate amid the scholars as well as the public. Many ponder on which acts should be deemed discriminatory, when they can come to a conclusion that a decision or a social guideline preference is actually founded on prejudice and the role played by prejudice in creating gender and racial disparities. Also of immense interest are queries regarding how the society should react to these problems and whether they have been dealt with in a pleasing manner. Social psychologists lunge into this dispute equipped with scientific method, hoping to gather evidence that can shed the much needed light on these continuing worries. In particular, this paper seeks to shed some light as to why stereotypes and prejudices occur in the mind of perceivers, as well as the manner and under which circumstances they are most likely to manipulate perceivers’ explicit behavior.
Racial segregation is defined as the practice of restricting people to a certain area of residence, facilities and institutions like school and churches and it provides a way of maintaining the economic advantages and superior social status of the politically dominant group, and in the past and present times it has been employed primarily to benefit the white population (Pascoe 44). Racism is a system of advantage based on race. This definition helps us see that racism, like other forms of oppression is not only personal ideology based on race prejudice but a system involving cultural messages and institutional policies and practices as well as actions and beliefs of individuals. In America, this system operates to the advantage of whites and disadvantage to people of color.
While prejudice and discrimination are closely related, the terms are not interchangeable. Prejudice is a negative attitude, feelings, thoughts or beliefs toward an entire category of people. There are two important factors that are present in the definition of prejudice, and they are attitude and entire category (Schaefer 35).
From the reading I learned prejudice is when a person attaches negative emotion to a certain group of people that is not based on facts. Prejudice has two levels cognitive or affective where the cognitive is thinking and feeling prejudice while affecting is actually doing prejudice actions. Discrimination is also discussed in chapter one. Discrimination is unequal behavior or treatment of a person based on them being a member of a group. An example of discrimination would be not getting selected for a job because you are African
In today’s society people are viewed as being in different classes depending on how much money they bring in. The categorization of people is known as classism. Classism is simply the prejudice or in favor of people belonging to a particular social class. Classism is known as one of the largest social problems plaguing the world today. Classes are formed according to how the rules of the following institutions; government regulations and economic status. It is held in place by a system of beliefs and cultural attitudes that ranks people according to their; economic status, family lineage, job status, and level of education. There are three major classifications to which people are titled. They include upper or high class which includes the people with the most money. The middle class who includes the people that brings home the average income. Finally, the class titled the lower class that includes the people who have only one income coming in or none at all (“What Is Classism.”). In the classrooms these classes still remain and the students within each class have different ways in which they learn, and view schooling. We as educators have to look passed their ways and address each class the same.
As written by Dictionary of American History (2003), discrimination includes six branches based on age, disabled, race, religion, sex and sexual orientation. In term of race discrimination, or racism, according to Fredrickson (n.d.), it exists when one ethnic group dominates, eliminates or excludes the others based on differences in heredity, culture or history. In other words, racial discrimination is that a person is treated less favorably than another in the same situation due to their race, color, national origin or immigrant status. In America, which known as a multiethnic country with mass immigration from the past, racism is a long and complicated issue. Ethnic groups such as such as African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos, Native Americans and other Americans color have experienced racial discrimination (Dictionary of American History,
Ignorance is a huge problem, it is one of the biggest factors responsible for issues such as racism and sexism. Luckily, ignorance, generally speaking, is a relatively easy issue to fix. The obvious answer here would be more education, but this is not necessarily the case. In order to eliminate much of the racism, sexism, and other forms of prejudice that arise due to ignorance, it is necessary to look at education from another perspective: one that encourages togetherness and development alongside people of all races and genders. One quote by Grace Boggs book The Next American Revolution summarizes the issue perfectly. “Just imagine what our neighborhoods would be like if, instead of keeping our children isolated in classrooms for twelve years and more, we engaged them in community-building activities with the same audacity with which the civil rights movement engaged them in desegregation activities fifty years ago! ...Our children will be absorbing naturally and normally the values of social responsibility and cooperation at the same time that they are being inspired to learn the skills and acquire the information necessary to solve real problems” (Boggs 158). So, the main point here is that prejudice, against all sexes, genders, and creeds, can be eliminated via education that encourages cooperation with the largest variety of people. In order to understand this concept, it is necessary to look at it from a few different perspectives to analyze its viability in modern society.