Essay on how Prejudice and Racism impact our Society
Prejudice refers to negative attitude that leads to hatred or intolerance towards a certain group of people that is not based on facts, logic or experience. Several types of prejudice include racism, sexism, weight and sex prejudice among others. Prejudice can be categorized as implicit/subtle or explicit/blatant prejudice depending on the way is cognitively activated or manifested in an individual. Different type of prejudice are therefore implicit or explicit or even both depending on the way they are activated in an individual in either a conscious or unconscious way. This paper analysis the racism type of prejudice the way it is often activated either implicitly or explicitly, its possible impact on the behavior of an individual and possible ways of reducing this type of prejudice.
Racism is a type of prejudice that that results from an assumption of superiority of one group over the other in term of racial identity. This type of prejudice is very common all over the world where people of deferent races co-exist. An example is the racism prejudice by the white American against the African Americans. Crisp & Turner (2007) categorizes racism into two types that include the old fashioned and the aversive racism. The old-fashioned racism is a blatant type of prejudice that involves negative or unfair stereotype against people belonging to the other group or a different identity. Aversive racism refers to the feeling of racism that people deny to express outwardly there difficult to detect.
Racism is an implicit type of prejudice. This is because the racism is unintentionally activated in an individual in by sighting on another person of a different group or objects that are associated with them even if they are actual or symbolic Devine (2001). Researches on the how automatic is implicit type of prejudice like racism activated within an individual. He explains implicit prejudice as an automatic bias that is unconsciously invoked by an individual without him/her being aware. Therefore understanding the implicit prejudice can significantly help ion reducing and controlling racism type of prejudice. Implicit prejudice is measured using the implicit association test (IAT) (Devine 2001). The test identifies the speed in which individual can categorize the stimuli they are associated to if it is either positive or negative. Therefore, people are more likely to associate their own group to the positive stimuli and the negative group the negative stimuli. The supports that fact that racism prejudice is more expressed outwardly to the outside group. In addition to racism, the other types of prejudice that are implicit include the gender prejudice, religious bias for instance the prejudice towards Muslims by Christians and vice versa (Crisp & Turner, 2007).
Researchers have also identified that implicit prejudice is also more likely to change depending on the exposure on events. This implies it is possible to control the effects of racism prejudice by exposing individuals to positive content and events that portray the prejudiced group in a more positive manner. An example is the 2008 election of president Obama in office after running a high profile campaign for president changed the perception of the white Americans towards the African Americans (Turner 2009). Similarly, in societies where racism prejudice is not tolerated, people are turning to the modern form of racism that is known as aversive racism. This demonstrates that although the implicit prejudice is a non-conscious, this perception can change depending with the events or environment. Implicit prejudice is more associated with the subtle behaviors that are non-verbal for instance avoiding people of the other group and maintaining distance.
Hoyt (2012), explores the meaning and the pedagogy of racism as an implicit prejudice. He identifies racism as a form of prejudice that is associated with power. For instance, the racism is more common in the America because the white America is the dominant social group in comparison to the African American. Therefore, the shifting dynamics for the inferior race is more likely reducing this type of prejudice. As more of the inferior social group attains similar political, economic and social status as the dominant group, the old fashioned type of racism that was even ,visible in the institutional policies and practices. Hoyt notes that racism prejudice results to race based oppression where individuals inn power are more likely to exercise their power in a more cruel and unjust way so as to oppress the minor groups. In the same case, the institutions that are governed by the people from the majority group can formulate institutional policies and practices that are designed to oppress the outward group. This form of racism leads to institutional oppression. In this respect, Hoyt has come up with the pedagogy that associates racism prejudice to power defines as racism= prejudice + power Hoyt (2012).
How does racism prejudice impact individual behavior
Racism has varied impact on the behavior of an individual depending in the either the individual belong to the outward group or the inward group. To the outward group, they may feel angry or frustrated and excluded from the community because of the racial prejudice shown against them. Racism prejudice has both the negative and the positive impact on the members of the outward group. Despite that some experience a negative feeling of being rejected, some may take the experience the positively and develop a feeling of even being stronger. They therefore exhibit behaviors that demonstrate their willingness to racist the experience or countering the incident back. Some people are also affected psychologically from the racism experience, which may have an impact on their social or mental behavior. This is associated with psychological problems resulting from racism-induced stress. Individuals who have been through a racism experience demonstrate are more likely to demonstrate signs of depression and frustration behavior. Other behaviors that are result from the effects of racism prejudice include the feeling of hopelessness, and resent. On the other hand, members of the inward also likely to demonstrated a resentful and arrogant behavior towards those from the outside group. Therefore, although racism mostly affects the members of the outside group it also has an impact on the behavior of the inner group as well (Crocker, 2007).
Controlling/ reducing the racism prejudice
Several strategies can be applied in reducing or controlling the racism prejudice. The first strategy is reforming the institutional practices and policies that support racism. Racism has historical background and therefore majority of the institutions are most likely to have racism policies and practices. Reforming these institutions can help eliminate the institutional based racism. The media is an institution that has power to influence racism. Reforming such institutions can have a significant influence in reducing racism prejudice. The other strategy that can work in reducing racism is controlling the behavior of individuals. This can be achieved by introducing the introducing strict regulations and principles that are meant to discourage racist behaviors in the society. For instance, the introduction of the of anti-racism laws in the United States has significantly helped reduce the racism incidents between the white Americans and the African Americans as well as other minority groups in the country (McBride 2015).
The other strategy that can be effective in controlling racism is encouraging intergroup events that bring together individuals across the different racial divide. These events like sports, community forums contribute to introducing goodwill and tolerance across both groups. In addition, the experiences that result from such events have the ability to change the way the two groups perceive each other that are most likely to contribute to racism. Racial prejudice is more associated with power, therefore, making reforms to the power structures to accommodate various ethnicities. This will promote equality both socially, economically and politically, as it is the inequality significantly contributes to racism. Another strategy to reduce racisms is involving children in the early since their early with anti-racism programs. Teaching students the importance of positive relations and the effects of racism from their early age will serve as an early intervention in in controlling racism. Just like other lessons, children learn racism from their parents and the community and teaching them early on the effects of racism can be an effective measure of controlling it. The other strategies can be discouraging cultural, racial and ethical identifies and promoting values such as nationalism that encourage people to associate more their nation rather than racial identities (McBride, 2015).
References:
Crisp, R. J., & Turner, R. N. (2007). Essential social psychology. London: SAGE.
Crocker, J. (2007). The effects of racism related stress on the psychological and physiological well-being of non-whites. Rivier Academic Journal, 3(1), 1-3.
Devine, P. G. (2001). Implicit prejudice and stereotyping: How automatic are they? Introduction to the special section. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81(5), 757-759. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.81.5.757
Hoyt, C. (2012). The pedagogy of the meaning of racism: Reconciling a discordant discourse. Social work, 57(3), 225-234. McBride M. (2015). What works to reduce prejudice and discrimination? A review of the evidence. Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research, 1-50. Retrieved from http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0048/00487370.pdf