How Can We Prevent Prejudice and Discrimination? Well, let us start with a definition, prejudice, is an inauspicious/critical opinion or feeling developed before or without knowledge, thought, or reason. It is any biased/ pre-judged opinion or feeling, either good or bad. It is excessive feelings, beliefs, or mindsets, especially of a hostile spirit, on the subject of an ethnic, racial, social, or religious grouping or individuals for specific reasons or no reason at all. It brings about discrimination. Discrimination is the unfair or prejudicial treatment of people and groups based on characteristics such as race, gender, age, or sexual orientation. Prejudice is a mental thing whereas discrimination is a physical thing based on that prejudice mentality. That is the simple answer. But explaining why it happens is more complicated. The human brain in nature, puts things in categories and puts labels to make sense of the world and for peace of mind. For example, a person might see a black person and instantly label them a 'thug' or aggressive, and therefore remain 'cautious' not to be stereotypical right? But , it is something they've heard (and yes, that is stereotyping) , something they've experienced or maybe, its simply just a hypothesis (which would've stemmed from somewhere else) but to set a label on that person subsides their confusion and helps one 'know' how to act or what to say and what not to say to avoid angering the (in this case) 'thug' and avoid conflict as surely, seeing a tall, big middle- aged black man will result in injury in the end to someone. Surely. The question is why people think this way and how can we prevent it. Prejudice and discrimination is quite arguably a psychological thing. It is where one's brain has been nurtured to think and/or believe and bias certain things merely because of upbringing, experiences, community etc. Yes, it is quite possible that it occurs simply because of one's hedonistic behaviour and or privilege but there is a reason behind everything, everything has a cause (the causation argument). Someone may have had a bad experience with a certain person from a certain group and that may lead to hate. Another might have just been brought up in a certain religion, race and or racist/homophobic etc. home that has led to them having a certain hate and mentality towards a certain group or type of person. There are countless of reasons at its debatable whether they should be excused, penalised etc. Prejudice and discrimination impacts the everyday life of its victims in areas such as work, revenue, economic opportunities, accommodation and scholastic opportunities, and medical care. With the same level of education and years of experience, ethnic minorities have been recorded to be 40% less likely to receive call-backs for an interview following a job application simply because of the way they look, speak etc. Blacks have higher mortality rates than Whites for the main eight of the 10 leading causes of death in the USA and minorities have less access to and receive poorer-quality health care, even controlling for other variables such as level of health insurance. Unfortunately, suicide rates among the LGBTQ+ community are significantly higher than rates for the general population, and it has been argued that this in part due to the negative outcomes of prejudice, including negative attitudes and resulting social isolation. And in some rare cases, discrimination even takes the form of hate crimes such as lynching, bashings etc. It is a major cause for police brutality.
First things first, I would have loved to say how to stop prejudice and discrimination but let us be real here. It is not morally right but it is inevitable. We all do it. Whether positive or negative, major, or minor we all prejudge things after all that is what a hypothesis is and we do that, toward our own kind consciously or subconsciously. It is a matter of trying to prevent it as we cannot stop the way the brain processes things or thinks. We cannot cease mankind's opinions merely change it. So, let us analyse the situation, and look at what can be done to prevent prejudice and discrimination. Quite understandably, Confrontation is one of the most looked at ways to prevent discriminatory/prejudice acts/speech/doings. This does not have to be aggressive, but it ought to be powerful, so it sticks. Prejudice will change faster when it is confronted by people who see it in the works. Confronting prejudice may be embarrassing and potentially uncomfortable but, it also can make us feel as if and that we have done the correct and most decent thing in circumstances where confrontation is and/or was needed. It is a psychological thing. A lot of people's mentality is that if they are not told off, they are being in fact supported or not doing anything wrong. If you hear prejudice and do not act on it or see/hear discrimination ongoing, e.g. slurs etc. and do not act on it you are debatably part of the problem. Being a bystander and tolerating it to transpire keeps it going. It feeds the oppressor with the mentality they are not doing wrong and even if they are no one is saying anything so surely, they can continue. Telling one off can cause backlash but feeding someone with the mindset that they have done wrong can go along way and aid the prevention of prejudice and discrimination. Arguably, the most effective way to prevent prejudice and discrimination is to merely educate. Penalisation does more damage in some cases then educating. Predictably, education has prolonged been a vital area of those who research and those who have looked at 'what works' to reduce prejudice and discrimination. Educational prejudice-reduction schemes build on contact theory through the idea that activities such as cooperative learning; discussion and peer influence; instruction; and multi-cultural curriculum will help to reduce prejudice in a way that contact alone might not be sufficient to. Educational schemes are concerned with promoting positive relations through challenging stereotypes and 'myths' about out-groups. This may involve groups being in direct contact with each other, for example pupils from different faith schools taking part in shared learning, or peer discussion between different groups on topics that might be said to create divisions and tensions (such as certain historical events). Some educational initiatives may draw on 'extended contact' principles such as empathy and perspective taking and might take the form of explicit/anticipated contact. These techniques may be useful for more 'hidden minorities', and situations where direct contact is either impractical (for instance, when dealing with prejudice against transgender people, who make up a very small proportion of the population) or might prove problematic (such as in post-conflict societies). Education does not just have to be learned in school or in schemes. When ignorance is spotted, do not insult, or fight back as initial option. Educate, tell them what they need to hear in a powerful yet polite way. 'no justice no peace' maybe it is 'no peace, no justice'. Communication is key and fighting it out, will not always help. Although when a protest is needed (hopefully peaceful), a protest is needed. Many of the prejudice-reduction interventions have taken place in areas in which ethnic or other prejudice results in or is worsened by blatant conflict, or at least has done in recent times. Essentially, quite a lot of literature on the topic of teaching history / education focuses on post-conflict settings. In relation to contexts with less overly problematic intergroup relations, we of course have to be wary of what conclusions might be drawn from 'what works' in these settings, however there may be useful strategies that could help to influence prejudice-reduction initiatives more broadly. For example, learning about more less conflicted historical events as well as the conflicted ones as it is important to know. In a lot of curriculums, black history is not learned as a subject except in the month of October... So, there is a scarcity of education in that sense. Now, stereotypes, we all make them whether good or bad. In social psychology, it is defined that a stereotype is any theory widely adopted about specific types of individuals or certain ways of behaving intended to represent the entire group of those individuals or behaviours as a whole. These thoughts or beliefs may or may not accurately reflect realism. Some may expect a boy to be strong and a girl to love pink. Some may believe black people are athletes and love chicken (as stupid as it sounds it is indeed a stereotype). Then, it gets worse. 'All Muslims are terrorists'. 'All blacks are thugs. 'All whites are racist'. This compliments social standards; be a certain height, look a certain way, have a certain body type etc. How does it compliment it? It is both pessimistic expectation/assumptions and can cause people to give in to those assumptions/expectations e.g. one might join a gang as they are believed to be violent and are not accepted for who they are. Another might alas gain an eating disorder in order to try and accomplish something because 'society says so'. easier said than done but a way to prevent prejudice and discrimination is to simply stop stereotyping and accepting social outlooks e.g. getting offended by being called 'fat' psychologically and subconsciously causes some global damage to society. Being fat does not always mean you are unhealthy. It is merely a body type. When one takes offence to being called fat, it feeds their mind and others around them that being fat is a bad thing. Then it spreads. People around the world consider fat as a constant negative thing. People want to lose weight etc. but, being called skinny is also used as an offense. Where does perfect begin when skinny and or fat ends. What is perfect? Personally, I believe there is no perfect just merely idolised body types, genders etc. because of society. Because, of us and that needs to stop. We can try to stop stereotypes where possible, but we cannot stop them fully, the brain does not work like that it is both a conscious and subconscious thing. We can simply try to prevent them. How? Stop saying them where possible, call it out, educate, do not give in to stereotypes (again, easier said than done). It is a chain of events. Stopping stereotypes, helps prevent if not stop prejudice, stopping prejudice reduces/prevents if not stops discrimination which reduces/prevents if not stops hate crimes, which again, reduces/prevents if not stops backlash which stops war etc. Racial Discrimination, homophobia etc. is disgusting and wrong but, I believe, it is all a social construct, it is all man made by us all by us and nothing but us. Not individually but as a general. It needs to change, and the change starts with us.
It is so much easier to hold a grudge then let go and even sometimes, we let go of some things that need to be confronted. Its all about finding that balance and tolerance. Tolerance and being the better person. The more you tolerate wrong the more wrong 'occurs. The more you turn to violence the more others do too.
It takes more to forgive then to be hostile offenses will come but that is life. It is also prevented by being a better person within yourself. Try not to have the 'Napoleon Spirit'. The Napoleon spirit is based of Napoleon himself. A short, stubborn man who did not like anyone that was taller or better. He was inferior to some but believed and always liked to be seen as superior. Stop bashing those below you and stop hating on those and painting a negative picture to those above. Work on yourself before you work on and judge others. As I said communication is key. Just talking about it. Spreading awareness. It goes a LONG way in the prevention of prejudice and discrimination. Despite the aforementioned limitations and complexities, it is not indicated that these methods have no value. Rather, that the key message is that it is important to be careful about how these activities are approached and to consider that some types may work better than others. The most important thing to remember is all the methods and that it is a matter of trying and do what you can when you can when it is needed.
We can change the world, but we need to do it together.
-A
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Discrimination and Prejudice: the essay
Literatura FaktuAn insightful essay on the widely spread issue of Discrimination and prejudice etc. From a young black girls point of view. It's a simple yet complex essay. Give it a read.
