Social Norm And Racial Discrimination In Our Society

If we live in a society where the social “norm” is a white, male, heterosexual, Protestant, and middle class; I can see myself being an outsider because I’m a black, Hispanic, woman, Catholic, and middle class. My feelings are complex because I don’t identify as the norm and I have to work harder to be included. If society standards were based on that “norm,” I can imagine due to our differences based on how society is, there would be problems like discrimination or prejudice that have become an issue in today’s world. What is discrimination? Discrimination is an unjust treatment towards an individual, or a group of different categories of people such as race, age, sex, or class. Why do some people discriminate when they encounter someone outside their race? It breaks my heart when someone is treated differently because of the color of their skin, or race. Why can’t some people just put their differences aside and accept one another? We miss out on having a genuine relationship with each other and learning about each other’s culture. Despite the progress made until this time, discrimination is still an ongoing issue that we are faced with. Although, a lot of changes have improved in our society, minorities still encounter racial discrimination.

Even though some people haven’t experienced or faced any racial discrimination in their lives, they still need to be aware that such cruelty and hardships exist for others in our society.

We need to know about our history in order to learn the struggles that minorities have encountered. It is important to educate ourselves and others about racial discrimination. Engage in conversations in order to find solutions to refrain from being bias. As a society, we need to learn how to embrace and appreciate one another. If we try to make an effort to understand each other, then we can unlearn our preexisting biases about race. The more we educate ourselves we can come together to eliminate

stereotypes.
There are assumptions that racial discrimination doesn’t exist, or stating that we are past that time, but that’s not true. It is wrong to say that racial discrimination is not valid, and it is not real. In some area, there has been progress made on racial discrimination, but in other area, we are going backwards. Jens Manuel Krogstad and Gustavo López, writers of “Roughly Half of Hispanics Have Experienced Discrimination,” state that fifty-two percent of Hispanics in the United States have experienced discrimination and were treated unfairly because of their race ,or ethnicity, according to Pew Research Center survey. The discrimination Hispanics experience varies based on age. About sixty-five percent of Hispanics from ages eighteen to nineteen encountered racial inequality and only thirty-five percent of Hispanics fifty and older have experienced discrimination. Sixty-two percent of Hispanics born in the United States have experienced discrimination while the forty-one percent of immigrants have experienced unfair treatments. Among Hispanics, forty-one percent of white Hispanics and fifty-six percent of non-white Hispanics have experienced racial discrimination. It’s not only Hispanics being treated unfairly in United States; in addition, seventy-one percent of blacks and thirty percent of whites have experienced discrimination because of their race. According to Krogstad and López, the factors determining discrimination are based on age, gender, education levels, and other subgroups. Based on this research, by the statistics, there are people who have experienced racial discrimination in our society. It is important to understand that racial discrimination still exists, and race plays a factor in those people’s lives dealing with race inequality.
Discrimination can happen anywhere. It can occur in places such as work, school, or walking down the street. Discrimination is not something a person wants to go through, but it happens. In “Working While Brown: What Discrimination Looks Like Now,” CNN wire service, Tanzina Vega discusses the interview of Monica Harwell with CNNMoney about her being “taunted” by a colleague who repeated an offensive remark said on the radio and reports about race in America. According to Vega, Monica Harwell works in Con Edison company as an electrical engineer. She was the first black woman to work in an environment of predominately white males. In the interview, Harwell said, “People had bets on me. They didn’t think I would make it” (qtd. in Vega). Vega states that the comments grew to a bigger issue that Harwell filed a harassment and discrimination lawsuit with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In the case of Harwell, her goal was to obtain a supervisory role. While in the company, she took jobs that gave her experience in order to move up. She also pursued a master’s degree and a certificate in electrical engineering. Despite all of her accomplishments, her application was rejected. According to Harwell, the supervisory role was given to a white man who was less qualified by experience and education. Vega offers a different study based on a report on the restaurant industry that found out white applicants had longer job interviews than non-white applicants. It also reported that white applicants were treated “friendlier” than the applicants of color and most likely given employment. The studies have found out that people of “black sounding names, like Jamal or Lakisha, are less likely to get a response than resumes with white sounding names, like Emily or Brendan” (Vega). Based on this report, there is evidence that people of color face unfair treatment in a work environment. It is important to continue to work together to improve the standards in the work environment, so that everyone is given an equal opportunity. When applying for a job, the best qualified person should be selected. Opinions or first impressions should not be based on a candidate’s name, it should be based on their qualifications. Companies should incorporate training on diversity and harassment in order to ensure that employees are aware of the issues that is occurring in the workplace.