Standpoint Theory And Its Impact On Society

A majority of people here in the United States have felt a touch of the issues, that come with classification of race. Due to this, many men and women of the minority racial groups are put in to sub-groups as a way to “help” give them an identity that can relate to. This idea to separate people by giving them identities is called the Racial Formation Theory. First introduced by Michael Omi and Howard Winant, the theory is a tool that helps build the idea that race is a social contracted tool where your racial status is weighed upon by many factors such as by those social, economic and political origin. By using race a way to build lines and boundaries, this has resulted in causing a rift to grow between the majority and minority

I agree with this idea that Heilbroner has stated because it depicts how words and categories have given the world preconceived notions on individuals or groups of the human race. The power of a stereotype has the impact to leave a believable impression in an individual's mind without interaction, research or a second-thought. Without truly getting to know an individual we quickly generalize and when the generalization is given the chance to be proven wrong it allows for us to be fair and respectful to each other past the surface

Few people are going to openly admit to being prejudice against people of other races, gender, and religions. However that doesn’t stop many of us from having unintentional racist thoughts. In 1979, Henri Tajfel, a social psychologist, proposed that “the groups which people belonged to are an important source of pride and self-esteem. Groups give us a sense of social identity: a sense of belonging to the social world.” This ideal of categorizing and subconsciously labeling ourselves is better known as “Social Identity Theory”. Tajfel continues by saying “In order to increase our self-image we enhance the status of the group to which we belong. For example, England is the best country in the world! We can also increase our self-image by discriminating and holding prejudice views against the out group (the group we don’t belong to). For example, the Americans, French etc. are a bunch of losers! Therefore, we divided the world into “them” and “us” based through a process of social categorization (i.e. we put people into social groups). This is known as in-group (us) and out-group (them). Social identity theory states that the in-group will discriminate against the out-group to enhance their self-image.” We all unintentionally discriminate against others that are in the “out-group”, and by doing this we are excluding ourselves from certain religions, cultures, races, and even genders. This ideal of labeling ourselves can be traced back to childhood and factors such as where we

One flaw in applying social conflict theory to the Islamophobia issue would be that this theory promotes the lack of consensus, problem-solving, and sense of balance within a society, thus emphasizing upon how social groups seemingly resent other groups and fight according to their respective interests. In brief, social conflict theory is a macrosocial theory that can be applied to a phenomenon, and only emphasizes the negative, dramatic, conflict-ridden effects of the phenomenon on different social groups within one

These shortsighted views contribute to the major issues that affect Muslims, which involve prejudice and discrimination. Prejudice is a preconceived judgment, that is usually based on insufficient information (Tatum 102). Discrimination is the actions taken toward members of a group because of their group membership (Feldman 444). Specifically, these issues include harassment at airports, accusations of aligning their beliefs with ISIS, and alienation from U.S. communities. In particular, Muslim Americans can experience discrimination at airports for expressing stereotypical attributes of Muslims, such as Khairuldeen Makhzoomi, a

As I begin to type this essay, I cannot help but feel an oquet barcode over my head. This barcode, having been with me since birth, contains all of the terms used to describe me: Muslim, Brown skinned, Arab American. These terms, a result of the natural human characteristic to categorize what we see, are fallible, inaccurate, and potentially dangerous. For example, because of these terms entire groups of people can become labeled to certain attributes. As an Arab American, people assume many things about before I even speak with them.It is hard to have a different view of people when all you see or hear of them are from indirect sources such as the media, whose priority object is to make profit, even if it requires the creation of a twisted

Racial profiling increased drastically for Arabs and Muslims following the attack on September 11, 2001. As a result of this tragedy, many began to associate Arabs and Muslims as evildoers. They were seen to as sinister individuals who hijacked airplanes with bombs attached to their body. However, Muslims and Arabs are not the only victims of racial profiling. Hispanics and African Americans have experienced this same treatment due to the color of their skin. This could result from the belief that whites are treated with respect, royalty, and luxury. Because of America’s history, and the decade of enslavement, African Americans are defined as “slaves and dirty animals” whereas Hispanics were stereotyped to have the career as housemaids and farmer workers with the nickname “wetbacks”. Such depictions of these individuals are still an issue in today’s society.

People purposely will insult or judge someone based off of their appearance. One example of this happening is after the tragedy of 9/11/01. After a terrorist attack occurred by Al Qaeda, people looked at Middle Easterners differently. In many 9/11 documentaries, they filmed inside religious places of Muslims. Phone calls and messages from mad Americans filled their religious places with threats and hate messages. Because of these innocent peoples religion, they were stereotyped as a terrorist; although they may have no affiliation with a terrorist group.

Nowadays, everything has been developed by scientists, technologists, and developers, which makes almost everything seem not only convenient, but also people are lazy. Changing technologies, both in communication and transportation have connected every person around the world. People can see many things different from themselves such as cultures, civilization, social life, and human activities. Ordinary humans have to sort things, including people when seeing many various things for remembering. Moreover, in the articles, “See Baby Discriminate” by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, “Don’t Let Stereotypes Warp Your Judgments” by Robert L. Heilbroner, “To Any Would Be Terrorists” by Naomi Shihab Nye, and “Not a Genuine Black Man” by Brian Copeland, the writers discuss about stereotype through their experiences, research, and experiments. The authors show judgments are the main part of the stereotype, which let us racially profile others with discrimination. The brain’s systems work automatically and naturally in order to think from sensory perception. Thus, the way of thought is to classify people and others by using history, appearance, and race because people don’t want to observe the others all the time, to prejudice in some groups, and to divide themselves racially.

For instance, when Vladek Spiegelman is being racist towards an African American and Françoise gets angry about it, he explains, “When first I came to New York I worked in the garment center, before this I didn’t see coloreds… but there it was shvartsers everywhere, and if I put down only for a second my valuables, they took!” (260). Although clearly wrong, Vladek’s thinking is very understandable. If individuals observe people of a certain ethnicity performing an action consistently, then it is only natural for their brains to assume that every person of that ethnicity performs that same action. Vladek’s brain spotted a pattern, and then he applies that to every situation he sees. However, this does not prevent people from accepting one another. Françoise still picks up the hitchhiker regardless of his race or background. The human mind may associate races with stereotypes, but that does not prevent acceptance so long as those stereotypes are not given any

When looking at a person the first thing we notice is appearance and base judgment of that we tend to make assumptions about a person. From birth, we have no say in our race, the color of our eyes, hair or skin tone. In Germany, Hitler eliminated more than 65 billion jews due to dividing race. White people took the freedom of African African due to their color but before that many races took advantage of others due to hate or resources. In this chapter, the race comes into the term with stereotyping the minority group and fighting to be the dominant group or fitting in. Typically America is seen as the melting pot, where all these race come together as one. In the following documentary, Understanding Race and white people explore cities like New York, North

In class we have been discussing the analogy of perspectives. A perspective is a way of seeing, also thought of as a ‘point of view’. This mental view or outlook can both enhance and constrain how we view the world in our own eyes. In the field of psychology and sociology there are many ways to perceive our world in which we live. No one perspective alone can define the world. Each perspective has its own distinctive strengths and blind spots. In class we have discussed different theories and analogies to better understand the complexity of perspectives.

Critical theories of race and racism have been used by sociologists to not only describe modern societies, but also address issues of social injustice and achieve an end to racial oppression. Critical race theory is one of the most widely used for this purpose. Its utility rests upon the assumption that race is a social construct and not an inherent biological feature. In place of the concept of inherent race, critical race theory proffers the concept of racialization. The tenet that the concept of race is created and attached to particular groups of people through social processes. In tandem with this, critical race theory contends that identity is neither fixed nor unidimensional. It also places importance on the perspectives and experiences of racial minorities (Ritzer and Stepnisky, 2013:66).

The mass media selectively promotes racial profiling. The assumptions driving terrorism profiling are not any different than “street-level” profiling—in that, a particular crime (in this case, terrorism) is most expected to be committed by members of a particular religious, ethnic, or racial group and that the members of that group (in this case, Muslims) are, in general, likely to be implicated in that manner of criminal activity…These assumptions are highly defective. The assumption that terrorist acts are inevitably perpetrated by Arabs or that the architect, of a terrorist act, is likely to be Islamic is a faulty assumption. While all the men, believed to have been, involved in the September 11th hijackings were of Arabic nationality, Richard Reid, who on December 22, 2001, attempted to ignite a volatile device on a trans-Atlantic flight, was a British citizen of Jamaican ancestry. This furthermore coincides with my line of reasoning that extremists exist throughout all cultures. In fact, prior to September 11th the deadliest act of terrorism on United States soil was initiated by [Oklahoma City bomber] Timothy McVeigh. Even non-Arabs like John Walker Lindh, a Californian, can be linked to the Taliban, al-Qaeda and

There are several concepts which contribute to the formation of intergroup conflicts: stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination. According to the text stereotype is, “a generalized belief about members of a group.” Prejudice is defined as “a