Francis Bacon once said, “The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it.” (Fischhoff, 1983). Bacon made this statement and didn’t know that in the 1960’s psychologists would be testing and analyzing this attribute prevalent in humans and naming it the Confirmation-Bias (Klayman, 1987). The Confirmation-Bias can be seen in all societies, but typically when there is a strong feeling of community and friendship. The film Bernie shows the Confirmation-Bias in action in the small town called Carthage, Texas, where the community was outraged by the accusation of murder by their most beloved men against a distasteful woman. Influences from communities as well as personal biases will often, unconsciously, alter beliefs, causing unfair analysis of evidence in order to disprove one side.…
Bell, Derrick, from Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism (Basic Books, 1992), D’Souza, Denish, from The End of Racism: Principles for a Multiracial Society (Free Press, 1995) “Issue # 9: Is Racism a Permanent Feature of American Society?”…
Racism has definitely changed it’s course in the 2000s. Now, it has shifted from more hate towards black people to more hate towards muslims . Yes, in the recent 7 years there were many black and white issues that led people to believe that all of it was a racist act. For example, the death of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, black men getting shot down by white cops and people did believe it was because of the color of their skin, and the black lives matter movement. For those who don’t know what the black lives matter movement is, it’s a campaign that is against unnecessary violence towards black people. This organization was created because a 17 year old boy named Trayvon Martin was murdered by George Zimmerman. Many people that are African-American had believed at the time it was in fact because he was black.…
Living now in the 21 century you may see many types of cultures and ethnicities. As for these types of races we have become numb to the feeling of racism. For a particular reason racism has been going on for centuries. Depriving people from what they have and what they look like is a characteristic of racism. As for now racism seems to be becoming bigger and bigger. Due to labeling races and its importance to society today.…
Social civilization has always been improved. From pro-slavery, US becomes anti-slavery and welcomes all kind of black people. From thinking that woman are weak, the world has witnessed how women and feminists change the world. However, prejudice somehow still exists on some dark corner of the world.…
Cofer’s passage reminded me of the many stereotypes that exist in popular culture today. Contrary to popular belief, electing an African American as President of the United States does not mean that racism is dead. Furthermore, Hispanics are not the only victims. While Cofer focuses mainly on the more obvious forms of racism, I’d like to call attention to the more subtle mentions. For example, recently I read an article for a class that discussed the racism faced by Middle Easterners in the United States. In the article, the author blamed popular culture for proliferating negative stereotypes. The Disney movie “Aladdin” was utilized as an example of such racism. Such racism can be seen in the lyrics of “Arabian Nights,” which states:…
“Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible.” said Maya Angelou. Prejudice is a hateful word with an even more hate filled meaning. It demonstrates the lack of knowledge of the individual showing the bias. The person paints each person who holds specific attributes with a general brush and neglects to truly take a look at every individual as a different and unique person.…
Racism has been around for decades, but luckily as time has gone on people are more accepting of other races. A race is defined as groups of people who have differences and similarities in biological traits deemed by society to be socially significant. In this picture above, there is my sister in law and her husband with their children. My sister in law and her husband have different color skin. On paper, when my sister in law is asked what her race is she colors in the circle that says White and her husband fills in the circle for Hispanic. However, when it comes to ethnicity she is not considered white she would be Irish and French and he is Puerto Rican. My sister in law, who has been blessed with three beautiful children has unfortunately encountered unpleasant situations when it comes to her family.…
Simply put, a representative democracy is a system of government in which all eligible citizens vote on representatives to pass laws for them. As Americans, we elect a president and members of Congress, and also elect local and state officials. All of these elected officials supposedly listen to the populace and do what is best for the nation, state or jurisdiction as a whole. Is this real autotomy of choice? If so does the hypocritical platform that America was founded upon affect our present day lives? Voting officials into office to make decisions for us does not constitute real freedom or liberty of choice. Every decision made in contemporary American government is affected and altered by the way American freedom was developed.…
In the past decade, racism has changed along with how society has changed. For example, in today’s society, it is rare to see a store, restaurant or anyone who just will not serve anyone because they are black; however, it can still happen. In society today, world racism is taken and given in a different way. When the Internet came into play during the 21st century and social media following not far after, the characteristics of racism changed. Author Emily Fekete writes in her article Race and (Online) Sites Consumption, “Geographers have noted the increasing role of the Internet and social media in everyday life (Zook and Graham 2007; Elwood 2011; Kitchin and Dodge 2011; Stephens 2013)”. Not only has social media increased, but in doing this,…
Rachel, I wholeheartedly appreciate the sentiment and ideas expressed in your post. They were well thought out and prompted me to question the whitewashed history we are taught in America. Not only does your creation of this post shed light on the unjust and poor treatment of the (forced) black women who fought for this country, but has pushed me to question just how many minorities went through the war (and the rest of history).…
Isolation and fear are the roots of racism. Especially when the racism occurs in the job force. A job I once had was working as a lifeguard. I did not feel any racism during the summer at the public swimming pool. Once I left to go work at a club swimming pool I felt it right away. The way things were different not only showed in the way people behave but also how everybody viewed certain issues.…
The evolution of racism in American society is one that is overtly racist to a country that exhibits racial apathy with the same outcomes as before. When one talks about “racial apathy”, we must define what it is; basically it is indifference towards societal racial and ethnic inequality and lack of engagement with race-related social issues. A prime example was hurricane Katerina; this historical moment displayed racial apathy, but showed more white ignorance. The shock of many white Americans felt when they saw the large amount of poverty stricken people of color in New Orleans that were left behind due to having no place to go in the after mass of hurricane Katerina. This displayed was a perfect example of the modern times racial inequality,…
The issue of racism has been a social problem in America for many years. Racism has been around for a long time, but it seems that it has become or is becoming a bigger issue in America. Race can be viewed differently depending on the people and the environment in which they live, which would result in a different view on how racism is shown and perceived. Race, and the way people view other people based on their race constantly changes, making it a social construct.…
After learning about this topic, I have noticed that this concept has applied to many situations in my life and in others as well. To friends believing that global warming should be stopped, but continue to use plastic water bottles, or believing that…