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Effects of discrimination and prejudice
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How are we categorized?
Walker Percy, Danzy Senna’s, and “Two Kinds” has developed many descriptions of different kinds of categories that can be presented in a person. To be categorized is to be judged by different views and opinions. The world has an image of characterizing everyone and everything in a sense of class. Categories takes place in three areas: people, society, and other observant areas.
First, people have the tendency of judging a person by their cover. The majority of the people only compare themselves as what they are by ethnic or color. Blacks with blacks, whites with whites, and others with others. It’s hard for people like me to choose which table to sit at or who to say to be friends with because of me being a brown-skinned person. Now being in a category of a diverted-self, which leaves me as an open-minded person to not take anything offensively. For instance, last week in the New York bombing. Since I have the same colored skin as the terriost, I have been called all sorts of names. Nothing was taken personally because I understand that people are angry. I blame the majority of the parents too. Children take the same actions as what they are taught by parents. You teach your children to hate other people because they do not have the same skin color as you, causes more and more racial issues everywhere they go and everyone they see. Maturity would be another key concept of people. They should not listen to what others have to say. For example, you tell me to go beat a person up because you do not like their skin color. The only reason I would go do it is because I want to prove to my friends that I can do it with no shame at all. What people have to say to you, should be kept as an open opinion of their knowledge. What people see is what people judge. I can be an unattractive girl or a person who wears baggy clothes, but that does not make me a bad person. Everyone has there since of style and being a diverted, you keep your mind open to people and see what he or she has to say. Not just on what others want you to be. People as a whole has a worry about how others will classify them and that should not be the issue.
These categories often include our race, class, gender, income and our educational level. More often than not we are generalized by what category we fall under. However, these categories are the ones that society sees us as, but it’s not what defines us as a person. “A friend argues that Americans battle between the ‘historical self’ and the ‘self self.’” (Rankine 104). We can say that our “historical self” is what people view us as. Not only is it the category we fall under it’s the stereotypes that have managed to travel time and stick with us regardless of us not having lived during the time they were initially created. Our “historical self” is how we are perceived by people who don’t know us. On the other hand our “self-self” is the person we initially are. It’s the person who our family and close friends know us as. It’s our personality, our attitude and who we really are as a person. Nevertheless our “self-self” doesn’t have the power to protect us from what we are genuinely seen as. “however, sometimes your historical selves, her white self and your black self, or your white self and her black self, arrive with the full force of your American positioning.” (Rankine 104). We can tell ourselves that society isn’t what defines us but there’s going to be times where you realize that people see you as nothing more than the label society puts on
For some minorities, the self hating occurs when they see whites receiving privileges denied to people of color. “I don’t want to live in the back. Why do we always have to live in the back?” a fair-skinned black character named Sarah Jane asks in the 1959 film “Imitation of Life.” Sarah Jane ultimately decides to abandon her black mother and pass for white because she “wants to have a chance in life.” She explains, “I don’t want to have to come through back doors or feel lower than other people.” In the classic novel Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, a mixed-race man first begins to experience internalized racism after he witnesses a white mob burn a black man alive. Rather than empathize with the victim, he chooses to identify with the mob. He explains: “I understood that it was not discouragement, or fear, or search for a larger field of action and opportunity, that was driving me out of the Negro race. I knew that it was shame, unbearable shame. Shame at being identified with a people that could with impunity be treated worse than animals.” Internalized Racism Makes you see yourself in a different light. It defines your social interaction and your burry standards. To live up to Western beauty standards, ethnic minorities suffering from internalized racism may attempt to alter their
Race, Gender, Class analysis invites us to distinguish between "thinking comparatively" and "thinking relationally." People think comparatively when they learn about experiences other than their own and begin comparing and contrasting the experiences of different groups. This is a step beyond centering one's own thinking on a single group (typically one's own), but is nonetheless limited.
As Americans people really need to think what does Racism actually mean? Racism is the belief that human beings can be divided into human races and that some members of some races are inferior to members of other races. People who believe in racism are racist.(“Human Races”). People often hear someone say a slur that may have a little bit to do with racism but not really at the same time and they go bananas. Next thing people know there’s a court date and the member of the other race is a millionaire because he sued for a slur like my feet are black from all this work or my feet are red from all this heat. A lot of people for some reason love to just find a reason to be unhappy. For most its picking a fight with someone for a stupid reason.
It is easy to see how the defining of what a person is can be a tedious endeavor. As stated earlier, it is a common perception that in order to be a person one must be a human being. Midgley states, “It is my main business here to point out that this attitude is to crude” (Stephens ed. 316). Midgley brings up that man...
As human beings, each person might consider himself as unique because we have certain common yet very distinctive structures in our anatomy. The human physiology and basic anatomy are unchanging for all people. However, there are differences in color of the skin, appearance, adaptability, physical viability and many other factors. From generation to generation there is a transformation that shapes and changes all of our traits, and some of the characteristics are greatly influenced by variations in geography and also the environment. Humans have so many similarities, but not all individuals have respect and solidarity towards others. The idea behind this is the feeling that one is better than someone else solidly based on race, and this is what creates and enhances the idea of racism. The reason for choosing racism is to better understand the development of racism and the existing theories that have explained this issue. It is true that racism continues to persist in our current world even after so much research has been done and laws set to guard individuals from racism in all day-to-day sectors of life. With the introduction of modern technology and social media, people started to communicate more with each other and possibly understand other people's perspective. There are several theories that analyze racism.
A careful look at these five readings finds identity or ethnicity divided into the following three categories, society’s preconceived impression of the identity or ethnicity, the division between the identity or ethnicity and main stream society, and the judgment of the identity or ethnicity by mainstream society.
In conclusion, society shapes our perspective on people which classifies them into various social groups. Each defined by different characteristics that can be physical, ideological or ethnical. This leads to a discrimination of them for their difference traits. For this reason in the novel social groups are represented in particular ways so the audience can reflect over stereotypical issues.
Were you ever put in a position where you go through some difficulty at home evan at school which first it seems all great but people judge you because the people you hang out with calling you names that evan offends others that is to say, they'll judge you because of the race your friends are. Having to get bullied for that same reason.
The first characteristic of stereotyping is over-generalisation. A number of studies conducted found that different combinations of traits were associated with groups of different ethnic and national origin (Katz and Braly, 1933). However, stereotyping does not imply that all members of a group are judged in these ways, just that a typical member of a group can be categorised in such judgements, that they possess the characteristics of the group. Still, when we talk of a group, we do so by imagining a member of that group.
A label defines an individual as a certain kind of person. Defining an act as deviant or criminal is not a simple straight forward process. A label is not neutral, it contains an evaluation of the person to whom it is applied. It is a ‘Master Status’ in the sense that it overshadows all the other statuses possessed by the individual. If an individual is labelled as criminal, mentally ill or gay, such labels tend to override the individuals status as father, husband, worker, friend or neighbour. Whether or not the label is applied will depend on how the act is interpreted by the audience. This in turn will depend on who commits the act and where and when it was committed.
If we try to categorize human by the term “gender”, people will be divided into two groups, males and females. Using this kind of categorization, it is considering people who belong in the same group are similar, and these two groups are very different from each other. However in real life, men and women’s characteristics tend to overlap (Crespi) . Even people who are in the same group may have different characteristics and personalities which are formed influencing by the environment and experiences.
However, I have come to the understanding that being part of a subordinate culture specifically an African one, I have had to deal with a great deal of prejudice and discrimination based on my skin color. Most of my knowledge of my race has come through the focus of black history during the month of February. I remember watching a movie called To Kill a Mockingbird in high school, the movie sheds some light on the position and struggle blacks have and still face in society, with respects to discrimination. Growing up, my parents were not very vocal about the topic of race in general, noting that, I was always told by my parents and in church, not to use hateful speech, and to treat everyone equally as we all belong to one human
In an online article “Root of Identity” by Claude M. Steele he wasn't allowed to go to certain places based on the color of his skin. He shows how stereotypes played a huge role in his life and greatly effected in a negative way. At a younger age he didn't understand why someone would refuse him the right to swim at the local pool because of his skin color. Though this was awhile back he goes to explain it hasn't really changed. Even though he does have equal rights he still gets judged for the color of his skin whether it applying for a job or how he is treated by other people. This is because we are stilled raised as children to believe these facts are true. We are raised to believe that we should judge a man on the color of his skin and not the content of his character. In another article “Storm’s Identity” by Patricia J. Williams she explains why people are upset about parents not releasing the sex of a baby at a local daycare. Though all immediate family knows the sex of the baby they will not tell anyone else the sex. This has started an uproar with other parents that have their children going to the same daycare. Parents feel it is wrong and it makes them feel uncomfortable to have their children in the same place. Williams goes to explain more on why it shouldn't even matter because she's is a human and American and should be treated as an equal. Williams exposes the world for how they truly feel and show how people say they don’t mind, but really do. People were raised this way, to believe that this is strange. When we shouldn't worry about this because a human is still human and should be treated that way. Therefore, this shows how were being raised makes us judge people
I believe that everyone is it individual but because of the society we are in we have to fill that we have to promote the stereotypes but for us to keep his ideas of who we are supposed to be in their eyes. It's something because I was tall for my age for example and I was black I had to be able to play basketball at volleyball. Sometimes I would feel uncomfortable saying yes that's what I play because I know that they probably assume this because they assume that all tall people play sports or if you because you're black you have to play a sport because if you don't does that make me any less black? Or for the fact that I was raised around mostly white people and went to the predominately white schools people assume that's the only reason why am able to speak as clearly and intelligently as possible and highly doubt that I am able to speak Ebonics. or whatever slang that is popular in American dialect. But things like that shape the way in which I conduct myself because the color of my skin tone the way in which I carry myself whether I'm in academic environment , professional environment in front of friends are family. With each of these groups there is a seemingly seamless changing hats to match the area.