Racism And Stereotyping

What we as a community cannot overemphasize is the fact that we cannot barely undo the legacy of a distinctive system such as apartheid overnight. It is our duty to continuously strive towards nationhood, transformation, reconciliation and as South Africans. Nevertheless, nation states are political constructs and thus have to be continuously molded through social engineering. It is hazardous to our democracy for anyone in this community to hold or possess the view that racism is a given. Since time immemorial all the justifications advanced by apologists of this prejudice have been proven untrue. Despite this, some people in our community are still prone to racism and this is the problem which we should address.

In today’s society, many people use stereotypes, a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing, amongst these are race, gender, age, social class etc. Stereotypes are essentially used as categorization. Categorization and stereotyping are both fundamental to human nature; helping make the world more predictable. Stereotyping is most often used by everyday people who don’t know a person, so they judge them by how they look, or by how they carry themselves. Everyone, at some point in their lives, has been stereotyped based on different aspects of their person, such as “acting like a man” or “manning up” because I am a male.

Stereotyping and discrimination are very deeply ingrained in American culture. Even though there have been movements taken to combat stereotyping and discrimination such as the Civil Rights Movement, the Women’s Rights movement, and the Black Lives Matter Movement, it still exists. This raises the question of, how do we end it? While there is no definite answer there is a way to avoid stereotyping and discrimination. The three essayists Bharati Mukherjee, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Brent Staples and show that by learning about stereotyping, people can also learn how to change themselves to avoid discrimination based on stereotypes. By comparing and contrasting these essayists experiences as well as outside research to show the theme of why people

Racism is a serious social menace not only in the US, but also the world over, including Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. The situation has escalated to a new high, especially in this twenty-first century where technological advancements have necessitated mass and quick sharing of information (Nairn et al. 188). Indeed, social media elements like Facebook, Snap Chat, Twitter, Instagram, and What Sapp has been core in enhancing globalization and its effects, some of which affect and influence racial discrimination both directly and indirectly. As opposed to the views that racism is real and has gained momentum globally, the work of media has on the other hand chosen to report the manifesting cases on the extreme degrees, so that it appears as though the world has come to a halt because of such discriminations. At a critical approach, scholars have noted that media is a channel that creates awareness about racism, and hence could easily escalate the situation if a critical balance on the news and reports aired to the public are not balanced between estimates and practical occurrences (Baker and Rowe 443). While discussing the subject of racism and racial discrimination, it is not only essential to outline how the situation is apparently but also imperative to confirm that race relations are depicted to be really bad in today’s times but the media tries to persuade people to believe an exaggerated side of the situation.

Firstly, Racism can be reduced or prevented by making some changes in the community. Additionally, “If you hear someone use racial slurs, make a racial joke, or mistreat people because of their race, step in say something.” If someone sees somebody being racist with someone else in the community he/she should stop him/her immediately before something goes wrong. Furthermore, people should sit together and talk about racism and how can they prevent racism from their community or society before it spreads around the community and ruin their society for their entire life. Moreover, there are some organizations, that are trying to stop racism from this world. “Stand Against Racism is a signature campaign of YWCA USA to build community among those who work

Being a young Caucasian woman, I feel as though society has stereotyped me as a coffee drinking, yoga loving, UGG boot wearing female incompetent of thinking for herself. I am expected to drive a new Mercedes Benz, throw a temper tantrum when daddy won't hand over his credit card, and have a mental breakdown when the holidays come to an end because that means the infamous Starbucks pumpkin spice latte will no longer be available. Social media has coined a phrase for these issues and that is “white girl problems”. I prefer the term “racial stereotyping”.

There are many ways we can try to reduce or prevent racism in our society, but it will involve dedication from many people. Maybe the most important step in preventing racism is educating our youth and teaching them the dangers at an early age. Law enforcement intervention could prove to be an essential way in reducing racism because it is essential for people to know that it is against the law to act upon racist beliefs. Making changes in your community is a way to get everyone involved in the plan to reduce racism in the upcoming years. There are many ways our community could contribute to this cause, for example, organizing cultural events or creating organizations could be some simple and effective ways to reduce the amount of racism occurring in our

Stereotyping leads to prejudice. If I am walking in a park and I see a group of people walking towards me (lets say all are white males) and they are dressed up and look very nice. I do not panic, now another group is walking towards me and now this group is all men (African Americans) and they are dressed and conduct themselves just the same as the first group, but I panicked with this group. Why because I stereotyped the second group and if I was prejudice no matter how they dressed or acted I would be afraid of them because they are black. I judge them based on skin color and not on individuality.

Another way to fight against racism is rejecting any kind of stereotypes and educates ourselves. Due to computer games, internet and television, everybody is exposed to stereotype and this can have an effect on how we view others. For example, a mother points out her concerns about how the classic movie The Lion King. She emphasizes how the hyenas that were the bad characters in the movie had voices that make them sound as black people and Spanish speaking people. She explains the effects that this made in her son who randomly relates black people with bad guy. She says “Once, while we were driving through the city not from where we live, my son saw a young black man running down the street. He said to me “Why is that kid running? I said, I

In Living Color: Race and American Culture, Michael Omi discusses that, “In contemporary television and film, there is a tendency to present and equate racial minority groups individuals with specific social problems. Blacks are associated with drugs and urban crime, Latinos with ‘illegal’ immigration, while Native Americans cope with alcoholism and tribal conflicts” (632).

Stereotypes make us simplify our social world so it’s it becomes easier to recognize some situations. They make us understand basic groups of people to some extent of truth. “The most famous study of racial stereotyping was published by Katz and Braly in 1933, 100 university students were asked to indicate the traits most characteristic of ten different social groups. Students displayed a high level of agreement about the traits of certain racial and ethnic groups, such as Negroes (described as superstitious by 84% of the students, and as lazy by 75%), and Jews (described as shrewd by 79%).” All kinds of people of stereotypes about others.

Racism, prejudice, and stereotyping are major issues in America. Racism is defined as “a set of beliefs that one’s own racial group is superior to other groups (Benokraitis, 2014, p. 185). The existence of racism comes hand to hand with hate groups. Hate groups are an organized group of individuals who demonstrates hatred against people of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation or any other designated sector of society. One particular hate group that I would like to explore is “World Church of the Creator”. “World Church of the Creator” is a white supremacist group that considers itself a religion found on the proposition that the white race is “nature’s highest creation ("ADL- World Church of the Creator", 2001).

1. The issues of diversity don’t involve the color one’s skin, but whether your eye color was brown or blue. Any volunteer with blue eyes was bullied and sent to a holding room with a security guard. They are being shouted at to sit down and shut up. Brown eye people are being sent straight through to their seats in the main hall. The brown eyes were the privileged majority, while the blue eyes were the minority. The issue that white blue eyed people needs to know how it feels on the receiving end of racism. The whole issue of diversity is the majority positions, the powerful positions of whites, don’t understand the problem of racism. Racism was an immoral and irrational social construct that people were far too quick to sign up to. The

He lives off the grid, in a warm hole in the ground where he is hibernating in anticipation of future direct, visible action. But before all this direct, visible action happens, he needs to detail his road to recognizing his invisibility. We get context when we learn that the narrator's grandparents were former slaves freed after the Civil War.

Previous researchers who studied stereotyping had simply asked people to record their feelings about minority groups and had used their answers as an index of their attitudes. Present psychologists understand that these conscious answers are only half the story. The fact of how progressive a person seems to be on the surface bears little or no relation to how prejudiced he or she is on an unconscious level. Jack Dovidio, Ph.D., of Colgate University said, “twenty years ago, researchers hypothesized that there were people who said they were not prejudiced but who really did have unconscious negative stereotypes and beliefs” (Paul, 1998).