Personal Essay: Prejudice And Stereotypes

It has been thoroughly thought over what current topic or issue that people experience in most environments today, at both a micro and macro level that would be able to be examined and have come to the decision of looking at the most widely discussed subject, prejudice. All people are affected by prejudice in one way or another and it can impact on people's lives depending on what form it has taken. Also to be able to acknowledge that all people can be prejudices and see this is the first step to overcoming it.. The question that has been decided upon is that of “What types of prejudice do we see commonly today and how do they affect an individual at a micro and macro level?”

Bissenger employs an omniscient point of view and detail to convey the idea that prejudice and stereotyping are never good things.

In this modern world, prejudice is still a universal problem we still have yet to overcome. Although it is true that our society is much less prejudiced than it was 40-50 years ago, we are still struggling to create racial harmony in a world that is so diverse in terms of racial group, sexual orientations, ethnicity, nationality, religions, and so on. I think the core of prejudice comes from stereotyping, which is the generalization of motives, characteristics, or behavior to an entire group of people. In the world where media propaganda is ubiquitous, often times most stereotypes are not formed on valid experiences, instead they are based on images publicized by the mass media, or even created within our heads after seeing and hearing examples from many different sources, like movies, or even hearsay. Stereotyping is more powerful than we think, because it allows those false pictures to control our thinking that leads us to assign uniform characteristics to any person in a group, without consideration of the actual difference between members of that particular group.

Whatever the age and whatever the reason, the impact and effect of discrimination and prejudice on children and young people can be extreme and can also have far reaching consequences for the sufferers – even following them into adulthood.

Wow! You are really smart for a black girl! You dress very nice for African-American, or I didn’t expect you to be so quiet. I have endured all of these comments on countless occasions. Many of my attributes genuinely surprise people, and I often wonder if my ethnicity influenced their reactions. Would my intelligence, sense of style, or shyness perplex others if I was of a different race? My dark brown skin is inevitably the first impression that I express, which dominates the presumptions and biases that others have about me. Moreover, racial stereotypes affect people of all races, and this issue exists in many aspects of our lives, anywhere from a casual conversation to law enforcement to a trip through airport security. Many

In this paper I will discuss what happens when we allow biases and prejudice to affect our actions toward others. I will then conclude my paper with what we can do to prevent or eliminate discrimination.

In today’s society, we face prejudice every day in many forms. Most people in today’s society have either been victims of prejudice or are guilty of exhibiting prejudice towards others.

Racial stereotypes have always been a serious issue in society. The stereotypes impact many aspects of our life. We more or less get carried away by our perceptions toward race, and judge people in a certain frame unconsciously, as Omi set forth in In Living Color: Race and American Culture. Taken by Hilary Swift, this photo presents an African American woman, waiting for a bus that can take her to the Kitchen of Love, a food pantry that located in Philadelphia aiming to feed people suffering from hunger, where she volunteers. It happens in dawn so it’s still dark outside. The surroundings give us an idea that it should take place in a black neighborhood (Stolberg “Black Voters, Aghast at Trump, Find a Place of Food and Comfort”). The woman is staring at the direction where the bus is coming, with a smile on her face. As a photojournalistic image, this photo is aiming to portrait a kind and helpful African American woman, however, does this photo really “positively” portrait an African American woman?

Most people find stereotypes to be obnoxious, especially when they have to do with sensitive subjects like gender or race. “Stereotyping is a generalization about a group or category of people that can have a powerful influence on how we perceive others and their communication behaviors” (Floyd, 61). Because they underestimate the differences among individuals in a group, stereotyping can lead to inaccurate and offensive perceptions of other people. Although stereotypes are prevalent in almost every society, becoming aware of our perceptions of others, as well as differentiating between both positive and negative stereotypes can help us overcome those stereotypes.

In any society, how we see ourselves and how others treat us depends on many factors. Race, ethnicity, and cultural background are identifiers of individuals. Most people have confronted prejudice based on these identifiers, either personally experiencing discrimination or knowing someone who has. Beyond ensuring organizational compliance with a country’s anti-discrimination laws, it is incumbent upon managers to support diversity in the workplace and to be culturally competent.

Most individuals can agree that at a given point in life they have dedicated some arrangement of prejudice. Even with a challenging characteristic of understanding stereotypes. The best thing to do can be to give people a chance when it comes to judging them completely. One of the following examples transpires to me in my first year of college. However, throughout life, I always never presented prejudiced against anyone in not even a small amount. Although each day can be different, the best option appears to be understanding of others. In a more comprehensive version, the prejudiced seem as I misinterpreted against two African American classmates in college I attended. Soon my understanding about them looked extraordinary, and modified my

“Most people know about and have experienced prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination. Social psychologists differentiate among these terms by focusing on whether they involve feelings (affect), cognition, or behaviors.” (Feenstra, J. 2013) As individuals we tend to migrate toward those that may look think or act like us because it may cause hate towards anyone that is different. This may inhibit social interaction with those outside of our comfort zone. There are often consequences that affect how you feel about other people that prevent you from really getting to know them. Having been taken away from my home at the tender age of ten gave me a 1st hand account of State Dependency. I can personally say State Dependents cannot

I have experienced prejudice my entire life. Too many times I have been a victim of prejudice. Unfortunately, my own immediate family demonstrates prejudicial behavior. They are corrupt with racism. They have been using racism on account of my family’s existence , individually we assume them to be appalling and disgraceful. I have been surrounded by racism my entire life, it has affected me for better notwithstanding worse.

In today’s world, there are many social issues, like poverty, vandalism and unemployment. However, prejudice has become the most dramatic one. Prejudging people for their appearance is a common practice that humans perform. People are not only ridiculed for their color, but also by their religion, sex or age. Therefore, I consider that racism, ageism and sexism are the three major problems in our society and we need to cease them immediately. Much of our world’s history were based upon racism. In the 1600’s, white men used Africans as slaves and treated them as they were not human. "Colored" people were not even allowed to use the same drinking fountains as white people. Fortunately, in the last three decades, race

Discriminating against an individual or a specific group of individuals can truly cause those individuals to have psychological problems, which is why this issue is so wide spread and is considered a worldwide issue. If the human race finds a way to get rid of discrimination all together the world would be a better place. Judgments should be made based on known facts rather than on false information. It is for this reason that has led to intriguing question of why individuals think in a discriminatory manner, and act the way they do, and how humans as a race can fix the problem.