Lost Letter Technique

Years ago, in a classroom with so-called innocent and impressionable minds, the children in Ms. Elliot’s class were exposed to an experiment that forever altered their vision of discrimination. Unbeknownst to them at the time, the outcome of their participation would later become adopted as study material and models for workshops, for future scholars and employees. This brief exercise, originating back to 1968 and titled A Class Divided, demonstrated concepts such as bias within groups, the repercussions of discrimination, how cultural upbringing can play a role in one’s racial perceptions, and that adults can be similarly impacted by intentional bias. Such experimentation naturally brings up the matter of ethics, and begs the question whether or not such a study would be conducted in a classroom today, and if so, would one let their child participate. Controversial research and methods can be eye-opening to read about, but might have nuggets of wisdom for willing scholars.

Ralph Ellison’s “On Being the Target of Discrimination” illustrates a personal narrative on how racial discrimination affects individuals emotionally and psychologically in order to inform people who have never experienced discrimination through the inclusion of emotional appeal, logical appeal, and the structure of the story. The author specifically targets people of caucasian heritage who are primarily male due to their inexperience with unequal treatment and opportunities.

Stereotypes on college campuses create a bias environment and affects the performance of targeted students. The most common stereotype circulating the AUC is how students at Clark Atlanta University were denied acceptance at Spelman and Morehouse College, in result they applied to “the next best thing” Clark Atlanta University. However, financial aid played a major role in student’s decision to attend CAU. This project was created to show that the stereotypes about CAU’s student’s decision to apply does not match their actual reasoning for attending CAU. The aim of this experiment was to get clarity from all three institutions about who engages in creating the stereotypes, where the rivalry started between the three institutions,

This week’s readings focused on a topics associated with the white population of America. Some of these topics included the privileges white individuals are often unknowingly accustomed to (McIntosh,1) as well as the lack of responsibility and motivation many whites feel when it comes to eliminating racism. This is a social problem because it constructs biases that often times negatively affect the interactions between whites and individuals of color. This potentially leads to many issues including racism, hate crimes, and the unequal treatment races.

The proposed study aims to investigate the relationship between implicit prejudices and their effect on perception and judgment of others. Individuals generally hold specific prejudices towards their ingroups and outgroups and these can be deliberately or subconsciously expressed through explicit or implicit attitudes, respectively. Learning more about the relationship between the subconscious prejudicial attitudes people hold and how these affect perceptions of others is important if a better understanding of intergroup relations is to be made. More specifically, and relevant to the study at hand, investigating implicit prejudices White individuals have and how these affect their

Case (2007) "found that participating in a diversity course increased White students’ awareness of white privilege but did not improve their attitudes toward other racial or ethnic groups. In fact, prejudice toward Latina /os s increased over the semester, which may be because White college students confronted with information about white privilege can experience a strong negative emotional response. (p.145)

Many theories have been suggested to try to explain the low performance of Hispanic and African American students compared to their white peers. Stereotype threat theory proposes that the possibility of being judged in terms of a negative stereotype in a particular domain negatively affects one’s performance. African American students are even more vulnerable to this social-psychological threat that occurs when students anticipate the possibility of fulfilling a negative stereotype. Some of the effects of stereotype threat include anxiety, low academic standards and low test scores. (Steele,

Although recognizing the extent to which I hold bias was a painful and embarrassing process, I have learned that bias is a natural phenomenon that can be challenged through quality time with a target population paired with intentional reflection. By simply spending time with the very population we have prejudice against, we are able to build meaningful relationships with individuals. It is within these relationships that we have our hearts and minds opened to the truth that people are people and that despite what the media and culture may say, one part of a person’s identity does not define who they are. Although our biases never disappear completely, meaningful experiences that contradict the biases we hold can assist us in treating members of certain populations in a more merciful, unbiased

People also acquire attitudes by socializing with other groups, like teachers, television, parents and even religious groups. “Social learning approaches to stereotyping and prejudice suggest that attitudes and behavior toward members of minority groups are learned through the observation of parents and other individuals” (Myers, 1996). Investigators have found that differences in self-monitoring influence the link between attitudes and behavior. Individuals who are low in self-monitoring strive to make certain that their actions match their principals, values, and attitudes (Snyder, 1982).If a child that was raised in a white family that has negative attitudes towards blacks, will have principals, values and attitudes against black people.

In modern days, there have been many reports on African-Americans who claim that they are unfairly treated at universities and that there isn’t any administrative responsiveness. Additionally, some say that the effort administrators are giving isn’t effective. Other students on these campuses say that the African-Americans are just overreacting and that the incidents aren’t that serious. In contrast, administrators claim that they are attending to the problems that these students have and that they are trying their best to find a solution to the problem. Racial hostility is when “someone or a group of people are prejudice towards people of a different

Richard T. Schaefer, in his book, Racial and Ethnic Groups, defines prejudice as “a negative attitude toward an entire category of people such as a racial or ethnic minority” (1979, p. 33). Additionally, Schaeffer defines discrimination as, “the denial of opportunities and equal rights to individual and groups because of the prejudice of for other arbitrary reason” (1979, p. 34). It is no secret that the African American community has suffered from an obscene amount of prejudice and discrimination over the years. However, some individuals believe that the discrimination against the African American community has long been resolved and that it does not exist any longer. Sadly, this is untrue. We as a nation would like to think that we have

The test subjects consisted of middle to upper income college students. What the interview revealed was that these students held very racially charged views. How they but attempted to conceal their true feelings behind politically correct and often ambivalent rhetoric. The essay Reveals that the so called color-blinded racism is a way for people to qualify their racial Perfidious under the pretense that racism no longer exists.

While at Missouri State University I took SWK 219, Human Diversity. Personal prejudice was a topic of discussion in that class and we were encouraged to examine ourselves to find the ones we held. Despite what my seasoned professor told the class, I found it difficult to think of prejudices I had because I hoped myself to be better than that. I remember feeling confident that I would be able to work with anyone without bias or prejudice. What caught me by surprise with my client was the prejudice I found in myself towards someone like me, a white male. Our backgrounds were as different as anyone’s could be but because a prejudice against someone my skin color was not on my radar I was unprepared to see how it affected my service to him. With my client though I felt so responsible for the integrity of the information that I left behind the dignity and worth of the person. My client knew what he was talking about, it was his experience he was trying to communicate to me but I put him at a disadvantage due to my prejudice. He had to try and yell his experience over the wall I had already built before I met him. Unaware of all our prejudices when we first enter this type of work, we must be vigilant to identify them before they occur challenging any prejudice we find in ourselves to better understand who we are and become more effective at what we

I think that many people do not notice they are degrading groups of people or making them feel unwelcome. Oftentimes, people think that certain groups are inferior subconsciously. I notice that bias can put marginalized people down, and leave the “we’s” of a community unsupervised. For example, it has been shown through a Yale experiment that bias is often used in a classroom setting. They used eye-scanning technology for this experiment and told the teachers to look for any signs of trouble in the scene (when there actually was no trouble.) In the end, most teachers focused on the black students more than the white students. This connects to my old school in Concord, as I remember that there used to be a group of Black students who were in my classroom in kindergarten. These students did not cause any more trouble than the rest of us, but the teacher seemed to constantly watch them. She yelled at the Black students much more than the White. I remember that these students never got away with any form of trouble, even if it was not very significant (such as dropping a small piece of trash on the ground). This left the White students unsupervised while she was dealing with these minor incidents. While I was not a student to get in too much trouble, I remember I used to take little multi-colored gems from the playground’s sandbox. While my teacher checked the Black student’s pockets, she did not check the white student’s pockets (for the gemstones). This extra attention given to the Black students often signaled them out, so less White students were friends with the Black students because we were treated differently. The only reason I still remember this incident is because my mother noticed that gems started appearing around the house and she did not know where they came from. I remember using the excuse that my friend gave them to me, and I never got in trouble for this minor crime. Overall, while this may seem

Whether you believe it or not, racial discrimination is not a controversial matter of the past and has a profound impact on society. Nowadays we still inherit unconsciously misconceptions and prejudices that happen to be unnoticed in our day by day. Consequently, in order to raise awareness upon the connotation of this matter, we must educate people on behalf of assertiveness and comprehension. Therefore, it is remarkably important to acknowledge: the negative impact of racial discrimination on the individual and society, the necessity of derogating misconceptions and the values of cultural diversity.