Shifting Mainstream Understanding of Individual Racism

As the academic semester comes to an end, in my contemporary racism class we have been discussing and connecting various concepts to develop our understanding of the role of modern racism and its consequences to marginalized identity groups in the United States. We discussed how, under the influence of mainstream media, we tend to focus on individuals who exhibit old-fashioned, overt acts of racism and the obvious, direct consequences to people of color. This leads many to immediately reach the …

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Shifting Away from Social Identities and Categories

Here with in the United States, there is growing demand for a societal change in how we currently conceptualize and value social labels. Social labels are seen as valuable because it allows us to easily identify, associate, and group people who share a social label. However the grouping of individuals based on their label into social groups like race and gender have been the justification for the perpetuation of systematic oppression for centuries. The oppression each social group faces varies …

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The Whitewashing of Psychology

We all have been exposed and influenced to the whitewashing of psychology, whether we’re a part of the professional academic discourse or not. Psychology theories and practices often times inform political policies to educational interventions that impact everyone in their daily lives. Here at Muhlenberg, psychology students learn about these theories and methods but we also are aware of the current field’s limitations. A significant flaw in the field is lack or representation of people of color in research as …

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