Prejudice and Discrimination

1. Prejudice and Discrimination

2. What’s in a Word or Symbol? • Racism is a negative behaviour based on an incorrect assumption that one race is inherently superior to others. • Discrimination is unfair actions directed against people based on their race, gender, ethnicity, nationality, language or sexual orientation. • Discrimination and racism are very strong words and yet people throw them around as if they were not so emotional.

3. Prejudice, Discrimination and Power • Issues of prejudice and discrimination involve people outside of power and authority. • Stereotypes are beliefs people form about groups when they take in information, these stereotypes become problematic when people apply these stereotypes to individuals. (Blond jokes, become ideas we apply to blond individuals as a basis for promotions) • Stereotypes are problematic in both their positive and negative forms. • Prejudice forms when stereotypes are negative and are not changed in the face of contrary evidence. • Discrimination occurs when people transfer prejudice into action and create out-groups who suffer from their deteriorated status.

4. Understanding Prejudice and Discrimination • Perception of the world is key to understanding the development of prejudice. • Sensory Information->becomes an image -> that is processed through a paradigm. • When a person perceives they take that reality and incorporate it into their understanding of the world. • People do not perceive things as they actually exist in the world.

5. Understanding Prejudice and Discrimination • An example is when a child gets close to a glowing burner and recognizes it as hot. • Every time they see a glowing burner, no matter how bright, they always now associate it as hot. • This is how discrimination has evolved to protect the human species, (hot not safe- cool safe). It works with objects, but not with people. • An image of reality can, therefore, differ from person to person. • If the image of a certain group is negative, possibly affected by negative stereotypes, then they will act badly towards that person which is discrimination.

6. Understanding Prejudice and Discrimination • When you add the concept of paradigm to the equation it shows how differences in perceived images occur. A paradigm is a person’s stored rules and conditions that they use to understand sensory experiences. • Ex. One person sees a stranger and wants to run and another sees them as another passerby, it depends on the paradigm people judge the situation with.

7. Systemic Discrimination • Systematic Discrimination is discrimination practiced by corporations, public institutions or entire countries. • Sexism or Racism become part of the whole company or institution.

8. Systemic Discrimination Examples • Immigration greatly favoured white Europeans for most of the nineteenth century. • In 1939 the ship the St Louis carrying 907 Jewish Refugees was forced to return to Nazi camps because Canada’s government would not allow for many Jewish refugees. • Women were not identified as persons until 1929. • During the Second World War Japanese were put into internment camps. • Aboriginal people were not given full voting rights until 1962. • Many in Canada are still disenfranchised by employers, including aboriginals.

9. IQ Testing and Discrimination • Standard IQ tests were first created by French Psychologist Theodore Simon. • The Stanford-Binet Test has replaced this test and has become widely used. • The problem is that the test is set up to judge the IQ of the white majority. • Many have tried to make the case that some groups are smarter than others based upon these tests. • Canadian education psychologist Robert Samuda has made the case that IQ testsuse language and ideas of the majority so success on these tests depends on how well a group has assimilated these cultural ideas. • Culturally-fair tests are starting to replace the old Stanford-Binet tests in Canada.

10. Genocide • Genocide is the ultimate form of discrimination. • Occurs when those in power try to eliminate an entire race of people. • Hitler is best known for the Holocaust against Jewish People, but Serbia, Rwanda, Indonesia have all been places where genocides have occurred. • Under the United Nations leaders who create genocide are tried for war crimes.

11. “Do Aboriginal People in Canada Face Genocide?”

12. Prejudice, Discrimination and Self Esteem • In 1959 a white Texan named Howard Griffin temporarily changed his skin colour to find out people’s reactions, he reported that he was denied things he had been allowed as a white man and even faced acts of violence. • Psychologists have long known that children judge their self worth on how others value them; hurtful words can diminish a person’s self perception.