Prejudice, Discrimination, and Racism

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Prejudice, Discrimination, and Racism
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Definition Prejudice

• Prejudice is a (pre)judgment about a group or
  member of a group.  It contains    
• 1. An attitude (either positive or negative
  although we usually think of the negative)    
• 2. Inflexible overgeneralization (cognitive
  component). Often faulty because most
  overgeneralizations are faulty
• Similar to, but not same as, stereotype
  (oversimplified standardized image or idea of a
  person or group by another)

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Definition Discrimination

• When one takes actions based on ones prejudices.
• People of all identities (race, ethnic, sex,
  religion, SES, sexual orientation, etc.) can hold
  prejudicial attitudes toward others and act on
  them - at least in little ways.

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Setting the Stage for Prejudice

• The normal tendency to think categorically (i.e,
  use stereotypes).
• Tendency to be more comfortable with people who
  are most like us.
• In-group/Out-group thinking. We prize what is
  most similar to us and by contrast, see what is
  different as wrong or a possible threat to our
  ways.

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Definition Racism

• When one group, because of its position of power
  relative to the other groups, can translate its
  negative attitudes into real social, political,
  economic, or psychological consequences for the
  targeted group.
• Prejudice Power Racism
• Racism is often hidden because personal character
  rather than systemic processes are emphasized-
  yet emphasizing the failure of minority groups
  to meet the standard ignores who sets the
  standard.

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Levels of Racism

• Individual- oppression directly experienced at
  the hands of another or vicariously through the
  experiences of other group members, through the
  media, or through awareness of societal
  injustices.
• The belief in ones superiority and out-group
  members inferiority is expressed.
• Its form may have changed from legal overt
  actions to subtle, indirect ones, but it still
  exists.

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Levels continued

• Institutional racism - the manipulation of
  societal institutions to give preferences or
  advantages to the dominant group and
  simultaneously restrict the choices, rights, or
  access of the nondominant groups. Institutional
  racism can be hardwired into the rules,
  practices, and procedures of social institutions.
• Cultural racism - a belief in the inferiority of
  the culture of a group or the belief that they
  don't have 'real' culture.

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Outcomes of Racial Discrimination

• Intended or accidental purpose of maintaining
  distance between dominant and nondominant groups
  -- everyday racism.
• Problematizing (Essed, 1991). Responsibility for
  negative outcomes is attributed to culture (less
  able, prone to criminality or emotional excesses)
  rather than systemic restrictions.
• The denial of the experience or perspective
  through assumption of over-sensitivity or
  pathology

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• Containing keeping nondominant group members
  in their place through
• Deny racism by defining it only as extreme racism
  
• Becoming angry at minority individuals who point
  out existence of racism
• Managing differences or making rules through the
  outwardly fair majority rules
• Marginalizing
• Staying separate, using White as normative
  standard
• Withholding information or deception

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Some possible causes of racism

• Frustration-aggression-displacement
• Authoritarian personalities
• Economic reasons
• Negative trait
• Social learning
• Ethnic purity