Racial Discrimination In The Video, The Power Of An Illusion

Many people automatically associate race with genealogy, ancestry, or other sorts of biological factors. In the video, the Power of an Illusion-The difference Between Us, the students assumed that there will will be tons of differences genetically, because everyone looks so different. A scholar from the film says that, “Genetically we aren’t really different, we are among the most similar of all species. Only 1 in every 1000 nucleotides that make up our genetic code is different.” (8.35-8.50). All of students in the video expected to have the most commonalities in DNA with people that fit their race. For example, Marcus, an African-American male assumed he would have genetically more in common with Gorgeous, an African-American female. However,

“Meanings justify the differential treatment that groups receive as some groups are deemed more worthy of, and eligible to receive, society’s valued resources than others. It now serves as a way to treat people unfairly” (Smith, Racilization). Discrimination perpetuates race and leads to racial inequality. Discrimination can be categorical or statistical. Categorical discrimination is unfair treatment from the discriminator of people from a particular social group because he believes this discrimination is mandatory for acceptance into his social group. Statistical discrimination is unfair treatment of an individual because of the preconceived notions that are prevalent surrounding the social group they take part

They found find large racial differences in callback rates. Applicants with white names need to send about 10 resumes to get one callback whereas applicants with African American names need to send around 15 resumes to get one callback. Whites with higher quality resumes received 30 percent more callbacks than whites with lower quality resumes. On the other hand, having a higher quality resume has a much smaller effect for African Americans. These percent gaps in callback rates are statistically very significant. It shows that African Americans face differential treatment when searching for jobs. This proves that race is very real and determines how much people earn and the life they can