Racism And Racial Prejudice

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1. What is the difference between racial prejudice and racism. Give examples of each.

While racial prejudice and racism may seem and sound similar, they are different. According to the Oxford Dictionary racism is “the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races” (Racism); whereas, prejudice is a “preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience” (Prejudice). An important difference between racial prejudice and racism is that prejudice is a part of individuals, and racism is a part of a society. Racism is far more powerful than racial prejudice, even though it takes racial prejudice for racism to exist. Racism is where a “racial group has the social power to act on racial prejudice and negatively impact the lives of another racial group” (Harvey & Allard, 2012, p. 72). Racism is far more impacting and damaging than racial prejudice, even though racism cannot exist without some form of racial prejudice being present. An example of racial prejudice would be to assume that African American teenagers tend to be thieves. An individual store owner may have such racial prejudice simply based on an unfounded preconceived opinion. The store owner may be more suspicious of African American teenagers when they shop at his store that that of White teenagers. Racial prejudice can also happen when a person sees a group of African American teenagers, and automatically views them as gangsters and trouble makers simply based on an unfounded preconceived opinion. An extreme example of racism is when African Americans were not treated as equals in many parts of America before and duri...

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...tract, some cultures view the negotiation process as being about building a relationship, not getting a signed contract. In this type of negotiations the culture who is more concerned about a contract must work at building a relationship, rather than just stating the positive facts of the contract for both companies. Such misunderstandings could result in the negotiations leading to the loss of a contract. If business people do not know more than just the cultural tendencies of the people they are negotiating with, then they will have a much harder time to relate, connect, and ultimately to get a contract. Not knowing more than just cultural tendencies of people that you are working with can create frustrations and misunderstandings for others and yourself, and worst of all, it can lead to a breakdown in communication and the relationship between two companies.

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