Definition Essay On Prejudice
Humanity prejudges others for many various reasons whether it is based on race, gender, culture, sexuality, etc. We sometimes forejudge others without even knowing it just because we grew up thinking that its’ “okay” or “normal”. It’s not okay but society has that impact on us all and we feel as though we can do it without facing consequences. Based on what I’ve read in "C.P. Ellis" by Studs Terkel and "Veiled Intentions" by Maysan Haydar, both authors believe that prejudice is something a person is taught, but they both experienced prejudice differently;
Prejudice can control the minds of people and turn them into something they are
Throughout the history of the United States, prejudice has always been creeping around the dark corners at night, and even during the day time at the local grocery store. Prejudice is a negative attitude toward members of a group. This is heavily ingrained into our society. In fact, within the article from The New York Times, How Kids Learn Prejudice, by Katherine D. Kinzler, depicts how children soak up any information given to them, especially from parents. Prejudice leaves America wondering how can we improve our own humanity, involving how to decrease the level of prejudice that wanders around our cities and towns.
Over the years there have been ethnic prejudiced between white and blacks, gender, and sexual orientation. An example of prejudice that is used many of times over again is when someone sees a Muslim person on an airplane. Some people automatically go straight into thinking that the Muslim person on the plane is a terrorist and are afraid of them. They do this without getting to know the person and you never know that the Muslim could be the nicest person.
When people rely on surface appearances and false racial stereotypes, rather than in-depth knowledge of others at the level of the heart, mind and spirit, their ability to assess and understand people accurately is compromised” (Jam A. Forbes). Throughout history, humanity’s judgmental perspectives of each other have been rapidly escalating. Those who think of themselves as superior have desperately gotten to a point of creating an artificial concept known as “race”. This fabricated idea has been used to segregate the “inferior” kind from the “superior” kind. “ Chyna and Me” by Joyin C Shih, and “Causes of Prejudice” by Vincent N. Parrillo are two literal texts that support the argument of race being a socially constructed term to outcast those who “do not” reach the social standards.
When we say prejudice it is most commonly known to be relating to race. In my experiences at school, there were cases of prejudice based on academic performance. Whenever a teacher would assign a group assignment students with higher averages would join together leaving those with lower averages to group with each other. This usually negatively affects many friendships since one may care more about their marks than their friends. This affected my relationships with my peers that I always worked with positively, but the relationship with those who I never or rarely worked with did not go so well.
The concept of racial bias –more specifically implicit or subconscious racial bias– has received increased attention over the years as racial and ethnic gaps in achievement (largely educational and economic), treatment, and survival outcomes persevere despite the expansion of concerted efforts to focus on the social determinants of health (SDOH) and combating longstanding, overt discriminatory barriers and practices. The increased interest in as well as investments made within the study of implicit or “hidden” biases is largely attributed to the field of social psychology and the research of practitioners like Dr. Jennifer Eberhardt and Dr. Phillip Atiba Goff, whose work have emphasized the importance of focusing on the role that contextual environmental factors and social conditioning play, rather than just explicit racial attitudes, in explaining the persistence of racial inequality. Racial bias refers to the attitudes and/or stereotypes that one has about different racial and ethnic groups that affect their understanding, feelings, and actions towards perceived
The Primary causes of prejudice are psychological as shown by emotional prejudice and demonstrated through an authoritarian personality, that may result in displaced aggression. Where Sociological prejudice can be shown by social norms. One aspect of the psychological prejudice defined in Parrillo’s essay, can be driven by emotion. Parrillo explains that emotional level of prejudice are “feelings that a minority group arouses in an individual. Although these feelings may be based on stereotypes from the cognitive level, they represent a more intense stage of personal involvement.
Furthermore, the idea of prejudice began in the times of slavery when there was prejudice against colored people. In ancient times, there was an idea of how based on how a person was born, would determine what their level of power would be in
There are some things in this world that have been around throughout history, cause an unfair, negative effect on others, and are easy to give into but difficult to pull out of. Prejudice is one of those things. It is a disease that people naturally succumb to without thinking, and it leads to isolation and bias against the prejudiced. Racial prejudice has been prominent through American history, typically towards African Americans, and although people are now trying to extinguish it, prejudice can never be truly eradicated. In the 1900s, Jim Crow laws and other discrimination against people of color caused those people to not have a fair chance of life, and be separated from the society of white people.
It is society and people that imposed biased views into the young generations that cause adults to be prejudiced. Children are the best examples of this because more times than not, they do not exhibit signs of discrimination despite prejudices in society. Fricker gives Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird as an example of a nondiscriminatory child, in spite of the highly racist community she lived in. Another factor for Scout, and most other children, is how prejudiced their parents are and teach their child to be. A parent who teaches their child to be relatively unprejudiced against all people will then have a child who does not think that discrimination is the norm, despite societal rules.
The three psychological theories which are used to explain the causes of prejudice and discrimination will be evaluated and outlined in this essay. Prejudice is a negative feeling directed at members of a group just because they are part of the group. Discrimination can be seen as the behavioural expression of prejudice i.e. the behaviour or negative actions, directed at members of other group, mainly based on their sex, ethnicity, age or social class. The mass murder of Jews by the Nazi’s in the Second World War is an example of prejudice and discrimination. Prejudice comprises of affection, behaviour and cognition of an individual, whereas discrimination only involves the behaviour.
Prejudice is defined by psychologists as exhibiting a wrongly negative attitude towards a person because of his/her association with a group. In this case, a religion. Prejudice against Muslims has reached an all-time historic high over the past 17 years. Ever since the event of 9/11, in which two planes were crashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre in New York and another was crashed into the Pentagon, the world has been confused, afraid, and angry. Confused because we hadn 't seen an attack of this magnitude both happen and get broadcast at the same time.
There are many concepts that underpin discrimination and many theories to draw from this paper will detail and explore the definitions, concepts, and theories such as Stereotyping, Social Identity Theory, and Conflict Theory which are all to the fore in prejudice and discrimination. It will seek to examine current research and suggest strategies based on best practice and evidence to combat discrimination and prejudice within organisations to allow for a healthy productive workforce. Prejudice is an unjustified or incorrect negative attitude in the direction of an individual based exclusively on the individual’s affiliation with a social group, a prejudiced person might not act on their attitude.
What 's racism? Racism is the belief that an exact race is superior or inferior to another, that an individual 's social and moral traits are predetermined by way of his or her inborn traits or in different words the belief that each one individuals of each race possess characteristics, skills, or qualities specified to that race, in particular in order to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races. Racism has many types such as racism towards other religions and other ethnicities but essentially the most noted style of racism is the racism against colored people. And there are three most important factors to why racism towards colored folks occurs and they are ignorance, fear of loss and displacement and finally the people’s desire to feel superior. Starting off with the first cause which is ignorance, what continues racism is ignorance in the world.
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