identity – Contemporary Racism

The Eye Exam We Fail: Colorblindness

Sofia S — Tue, 21 Oct 2025 16:10:32 +0000

What is it about colorblindness that makes it feel so natural in our perception of others? I believe it is the normalization of online sources that shapes it to be the standard for how we view race to perpetuate colorblindness. In this way, choosing to be colorblind acts as an ‘eye prescription’; that frame of mind is normalized and idolized by society, which leads us to forget why race is important to discuss and recognize. ...

Colorblind-A-Rooney

saltnpepper — Tue, 10 Dec 2024 16:57:59 +0000

Growing up, I constantly watched the Disney show Liv and Maddie. I wanted to be a part of the Rooney family so badly. I had the biggest crush on Parker Rooney. He was the youngest yet smartest member of the Rooney family. Parker was an inventor and accepted just about any challenge thrown at him. However, Parker stood out from the rest of his family for traits other than his intelligence. His appearance left the ...

Dear POC, It’s Not Your Fault

Julianna Muñoz — Fri, 29 Nov 2024 18:30:36 +0000

Being a person of color you’re doomed to experience microaggressions, it’s almost like a rite of passage for us. Almost to say, “I’ve made it mom! The white girl in my class just asked me where my family is “from, from!”. Funny enough, I did not experience a true microaggression until I moved away to go to college on the east coast. Microaggressions can come in many different forms, and they happen so quickly it ...

In the Face of Fear

Danielleh — Tue, 29 Oct 2024 15:18:23 +0000

Fear is an emotion that affects how we as humans shape our lives, influencing decisions, and interactions that we have. While it is a tricky emotion, it has the ultimate power of not only negatively affecting but can give someone the push that they need. That being said, I want to explore how fear relates to racism and how people have race talks. In Dr. Sue’s chapter, “The Characteristics and Dynamics of Race Talk,” there ...

The Current Hispanic Crisis

MG — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 14:57:36 +0000

Within the history of the United States, the notion that White people are the superior race and that minority groups are perceived as less has not changed much as all throughout the years. Hispanics are the largest minority group in the United States, yet the narrative about this group is not positively portrayed within our society. I believe that the perception of Hispanic communities has gotten worse specifically with the upcoming 2024 presidential election just ...

So, You Want to be Racist for Halloween?

Julianna Muñoz — Thu, 17 Oct 2024 14:30:16 +0000

Last halloween some friends and I decided to get dressed up and walk around the neighborhoods surrounding our college that are home to a plethora of students here at Muhlenberg. Walking around and seeing people dressed up was all in all fun, until from the corner of my eye I saw what looked to be a sombrero. For people who do not know, sombrero’s are a significant part of Mexican culture and a huge part ...

Let’s Switch the Code

Maridie Niare — Sun, 17 Dec 2023 13:29:36 +0000

In a nation where the air we breathe is polluted with the ideologies of Whiteness, People of Color are faced with two options: choke on the smog or put on a mask. While it would be ideal for one not to choke on smog, there’s two reasons why a POC wouldn’t wear it. One would be that no matter how hard they try, they just cannot find a mask that’s capable of blocking out this ...

Describe Who?

Natstermac — Sun, 17 Dec 2023 13:16:27 +0000

If someone were to describe you, what are the first things they would say? How would someone describe me: a white, blonde, young woman. See, that wasn’t too hard to describe myself with the acknowledgement of my race. Now if I can use race to describe myself, then why is it so hard to acknowledge another person’s race when describing them? I ask this question with the knowledge that for most of my life, race ...

White Privilege Also Means You Can Choose When To Be White

screen_name — Wed, 15 Nov 2023 15:58:05 +0000

White people are a boiled potato of culture – which is wild when considering the amount they’ve worked throughout history to spice themselves up (literally lol). By this, I mean that white people get to be nothing. They’ve convinced us they are not a race or an ethnicity in the same way other races are. They’ve othered themselves so much that they’ve convinced us white isn’t a color. If they were a number they’d be ...

The Unseen Narratives: Deconstructing Why Women of Color Miss the Disney Fairytale Love

Kaylin Foss — Thu, 12 Oct 2023 20:08:15 +0000

In a world where fairy tales often depict the quintessential love story, women of color find themselves facing unique challenges in the realm of dating and relationships. The Disney fairytale, with its conventional representations of love and romance, seldom mirrors the complex realities experienced by women of color. Narratives of these women navigating a dating landscape that is often subtly biased and sometimes overtly discriminatory. Disney princesses have long epitomized the romantic ideal – delicate, ...

The Struggle Is Real

KP5 — Thu, 12 Oct 2023 19:39:30 +0000

Being a person of color in American society is no small task, especially in white America. Oftentimes many white individuals will see a person of color automatically assuming the worst about that individual. This reason is because of the unjust prejudice white Americans have grown to learn at a young age; that they now take with them into their adult lives. One of our class readings notes: “Despite social norms and legal sanctions against racial ...

Cultural Appropriation: “It’s Just………”

Tajarie Wright — Fri, 11 Dec 2020 13:58:24 +0000

Culture is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as the “customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group.” Culture does not belong to just one person, it belongs to a group of people. I guess because culture is shared there is some confusion as to who gets to do what. There is a very thin line between cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation which creates a lot of issues. I once ...

Letting Black Children be Children

ShellyZK — Tue, 17 Nov 2020 20:11:34 +0000

Children are defined by their innocence, playfulness, curiosity, and youthfulness. However, those characteristics are defining White children. A set of studies titled, “The Essence of Innocence: Consequences of Dehumanizing Black Children,” conducted by Phillip Goff and colleagues, explains that with the prejudice and discrimination surrounding Black children, they need fewer basic needs and protection. In other words, their innocence is stripped away. But why? Why are Black children treated differently than their White counterparts? In ...

Language of Color

Morgana Wallace — Tue, 17 Nov 2020 20:03:42 +0000

After centuries of racial pejoratives and terms focusing on the absence of whiteness, the commonly standard term describe those whose ethnicities can be described as something other than white is “person(s) of color.” This is leaps and bounds better than more archaic terms which were used, with “colored” being similar linguistically but becoming pejorative socially and “negro” being a word borrowed from a language other than English, thereby further emphasizing the “otherness” of people of ...

Proud to be American?

Tajarie Wright — Sat, 24 Oct 2020 15:50:59 +0000

In the NY Times 1619 project, Nikole Hannah-Jones hosted a podcast called “The fight for a true democracy” where she mentioned a story about Isaac Woodward. He was a 27 year old Black man who had just returned from fighting in WW2. While on his way to see his wife, the bus driver stopped and Isaac asked him if he could use the restroom, he said no. They argued and ultimately, Isaac still went to ...

Am I the Stereotype?

Tania Jaramillo — Sat, 24 Oct 2020 15:38:50 +0000

What is a stereotype? Social psychology defines a stereotype as “any thought widely adopted about specific types of individuals or certain ways of behaving intended to represent the entire group of those individuals or behaviors as a whole.” Stereotypes are generalizations made about people and the groups in which those people belong to based on their appearances and behaviors. Do you know of any stereotypes made about you? Your skin color? Your religion? Your ethnicity? ...

Paradox of White Fragility and Institutional Power

Dani Barrett — Sat, 24 Oct 2020 15:22:43 +0000

‘Race talk,’ as Daryl Wing Sue describes it, by itself violates many of the standards and norms that society fights to uphold. Race talk invites emotions into the space and it invites topics deemed too impolite for small talk into a conversation. As a result, race talk is consistently pushed into designated spaces. Aside from society, a key influence on the success of race talk is the awareness of power and privilege that those in ...

The Acts of Exclusion in Greek Life

Marissa Steiner — Sun, 18 Oct 2020 14:41:10 +0000

Greek life has been under a microscopic eye, especially this summer and fall. Sorority Instagram pages are flooded with pictures of members and captions saying, “I found my girl gang!” What about everything that’s going on in the world? The protests, the murders, the systemic racism absolutely has to be acknowledged. We have to acknowledge that Greek life as a whole is predominantly white. I think many people have a fear of joining Greek life ...

I’m a Barbie girl living in a White world

Danielle Kraes — Tue, 13 Oct 2020 16:28:15 +0000

Take a moment and think back to what dolls you played with as a child. Most of you probably mentioned companies such as Barbie or American Girl. What did these dolls look like? Unfortunately, the majority of you probably said they were White, blonde, and had blue eyes. Most people think why does this matter? It is just a toy. However, it does matter. Although children are young, they are very observant. As they grow ...

So What About Your Babies: A Conversation About “Good Genes”

Silvia Mejia-Armilla — Tue, 13 Oct 2020 15:39:45 +0000

Starting with around the age of 10, I recall family members asking me what type of men I liked. Hispanic? White? Often these were the only two options presented to me, later followed by “you shouldn’t date black men, you have to better the race”. Thinking back on it now, my options were so limited so early on, it was engrained in me that marrying someone of a darker skin tone than my own would ...

Sisterhood’s Lasting Impacts

Emma Schwartz — Sun, 08 Dec 2019 18:02:37 +0000

One of the clearest impressions I have of Greek Life is the movie Sydney White, where every member of the sorority portrayed in the movie is thin, white, and blonde, except for Sydney White, who is, *gasp*, a brunette. And that impression has not been disproven. When I entered Greek Life at Muhlenberg, there were no black women who had joined or were already members in my chapter. There was one Latina woman, who graduated, ...

The Whitewashing of Psychology

Ivie Mims — Sun, 20 Oct 2019 16:16:24 +0000

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 ...

How Can I Help?

Devin — Sun, 06 Oct 2019 19:10:33 +0000

College fraternities and sororities are, for the most part, notorious for possessing a multitude of negative stereotypes. When the general public pictures a Greek organization, they think of hazing, paid friends, and parties. In addition to these most common stereotypes of members of Greek life, people within these organizations aren’t known to be very accepting. As a member of a nationally recognized sorority, Phi Sigma Sigma, I recognize the work that my own chapter has ...

The White Center

Alex Helpin — Sun, 06 Oct 2019 19:03:37 +0000

Nearly everything in the United States is centered around white people and being white. White people being at the center means that white norms are most commonly accepted while other norms such as African American norms are frowned upon. Everything is measured against whiteness because it is at the very center of racism and American society as a whole. White people have established that being white is good while being black is not, both consciously ...

Time’s Up White People

Amanda Josephs — Sun, 12 May 2019 18:24:38 +0000

For too long have white people ignored the discussion of race and actively avoided responsibility to end racism. No, not all white people, but the undeniable majority have clearly taken this path as it is 2019 and America’s culture is still overtly racist, and our systems remain institutionally racist. While I do believe we live in a morally unjust world, I personally think the majority of white people do not intend to be so hateful ...

Staying Afloat on “Lake Diversity”

Brianna Howland — Thu, 09 May 2019 20:18:21 +0000

On April 13, many students of color and allies joined together in front of Muhlenberg College’s Life Sports Center to silently protest racism on campus. While all the rules were followed and the protest was a success, it is certainly not the last time the campus will hear about the Student Action Group. As mentioned in the “Muhlenberg Weekly,” “…the persistence of incidents like these has made it increasingly clear that this is in fact ...

Who knew there was a Racial Cultural Identity Development Model?

Lucy Sedlis — Thu, 09 May 2019 20:03:52 +0000

All stage of schooling can never properly prepare a student of color (SOC) to enter a predominantly white institution (PWI). There are no tricks or short cuts when it comes to adapting in a PWI as a SOC. However, through further research beyond what was taught during this course I have encountered a model known as Racial Cultural Identity Development model (RCID), that was proposed by Atkinson, Morten, and Sue (1979). A person’s cultural identity ...

Finding a Place to Belong

Michael Cannon — Wed, 08 May 2019 13:36:57 +0000

On college campuses, much like any other place, there is a drive to feel as though one belongs. However, for some this may be harder than others. Specifically, on primarily white campuses, students of color may not feel as though there is a place for them. However, research done on this population suggests that students often find solace in what are known as “counter-spaces.” These students used counter-spaces to help them navigate the institution which ...

Thriving or Surviving: A Discussion on Black Student Success in PWIs

Shaynie Hayward — Wed, 10 Apr 2019 19:23:44 +0000

Black students in predominantly white institutions are, often, discussed in literature as objects of struggle amongst their white counterparts. Their experiences are reduced to micro-aggressions, theories of assimilation, and conflict avoidance, just to name a few. While all of these elements play a role in the minority experience within a PWI, they should not be the only lenses through which black students’ narratives are analyzed. Many black students within predominantly white institutions are excelling on ...

President William Compares Blacks and Jews (Oy Vey)

Amanda Josephs — Mon, 08 Apr 2019 20:20:52 +0000

In 2015, racist posts were made targeting black students on several campuses, including ours, on the anonymous app Yik-Yak. The Huffington Post wrote an article shortly after asking 3 Presidents of private liberal arts colleges to speak about what they’ve learned from recent student activism around race. President John Williams was one of those three Presidents. President Williams represents the Muhlenberg campus in everything he does, something that inherently comes with the title of “President.” ...

black and queer, and here – even if they don’t always see us

breebooth — Mon, 08 Apr 2019 19:53:15 +0000

One of my favorite topics that we’ve covered in this course thus far is the creation of counter-spaces. I am intrigued by this concept because I have created these spaces for myself at Muhlenberg without knowing that it had a name attached to it. What is more, it intrigued me to know that counter-spaces are something students of color across the country are constantly creating for themselves. I think my interest lies in the naming ...

Multiracial Marginalization

Michael Cannon — Sun, 31 Mar 2019 17:53:54 +0000

In recent years, the number of multiracial students as increased drastically. Since the year 2000, the number of people who identify as mixed-race has grown by 35 percent, according the Census Bureau (Saulny, 2011). However, on many college campuses, it seems as though their existence is quite unknown. There are multicultural affinity groups for those identify as Black, Asian, and Latina. It has been shown in research that a fairly common theme to pop-up for ...

An Open Letter to My “White” Black Friend

Kyle Watkins — Mon, 23 Apr 2018 18:24:38 +0000

It is very easy, I’ve found, to look out and look around and see behaviors and interactions that are silently swept into the cyclical system that White supremacy has made out of our country. It is valuable as it is easy to analyze and self-educate in response to these observations. A habit equally if not more valuable to the resistance to oppressive systems, however, is the ability to look inward to analyze and learn from ...

Phenotypes & Stereotypes

Jenna Lehmann — Mon, 10 Oct 2016 20:38:19 +0000

I drive three hours almost every weekend to go home to my family, and lately I’ve been listening to podcasts to help pass the time, namely RadioLab. I came across an episode from season five simply titled “Race.” There are a lot of interesting stories featured under this topic, but one in particular has kept me thinking long after listening to it. There has been this trend circling around the internet where people reveal the ...

Racist Comments in the Public Eye and How We Deal with Them

mtroyka — Sun, 02 Oct 2016 18:13:39 +0000

There are moments when a comedian goes from funny to offensive, or an ordinary college student goes from innocent and ordinary to an ignorant offender of a racist action. These are pivotal moments, because the way the world and those involved choose to respond can make all the difference of how the racial discourse continues on. Melissa Villaseñor was recently announced as the first Latina cast member of Saturday Night Live, and will start her ...

What’s A Patriot, Anyway?

Cassandra Baker — Sun, 25 Sep 2016 19:46:21 +0000

Growing up in Massachusetts this word, “patriot,” was thrown in my face a lot. We even have a holiday day celebrating patriots, complete with parades, reenactments, and no work or school. It wasn’t until I came to college when I asked a friend whether we got off school for Patriot’s Day that I realized, from her very confused expression, that this day is not a national holiday and many people have never even heard of ...

Every. Single. Day.

nashkrod — Tue, 12 Jul 2016 16:09:54 +0000

Every. Single. Time. I got a campus safety alert in college, I crossed my fingers and hoped it was not a black or brown man. I remember hearing people say to stay away from sketchy neighborhoods in Allentown, which at the time didn’t look too different from where I grew up. I heard people talk about going to White Wawa instead of Black Wawa or “Blawa.” Some people would drive out of their way to exclusively ...

Identity, Awareness, and Change

Hannah — Thu, 12 May 2016 13:16:09 +0000

Last semester, I took an introduction to anthropology course because I thought it would be interesting to learn about other cultures and societies. This class taught me many valuable concepts, but one word that stuck out to me was the word, positionality. Positionality refers to how anthropologists define their background and how their identities influence their research. I found this quite interesting, because it made me examine who I am and where I fit in ...

Complacence in the Classroom

Steven Feldman — Tue, 12 Apr 2016 13:13:44 +0000

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my own racism. In class discussions of explicit versus implicit racism, I realized that although I am not an overt racist, I do (like many other White people in today’s society) exhibit implicitly racist tendencies. Over my education both in previous courses and this class of Contemporary Racism, I have become increasingly more aware of these tendencies and am actively making every effort to combat them. For example, ...

Overcompensation Doesn’t Improve Relation(s)

lauerbach — Fri, 11 Mar 2016 01:47:20 +0000

I’ve been thinking a lot lately in class about the tendency that white people have to overcompensate for the racist acts of other white people. For example, when a white person hears a story about another white person acting in a racist way or making a racist comment, they often react by making a dramatic claim in order to make it clear that in NO way do they associate with the racist belief system of another white person. In the ...

Institutional Racism on college campuses: I, too, am Harvard

Ave.MariaLewis — Mon, 31 Mar 2014 02:09:47 +0000

http://www.buzzfeed.com/alisonvingiano/21-black-harvard-students-share-their-experiences-through-a The article above was introduced to me recently by one of my friends. While I was going to write about something different this week, this article captured me. Entitled “I, too, am Harvard” you see a preview of a photo project from 21 students of color who attend Harvard university. Each is holding a black dry erase board which dons a common phrase that they often hear and has in some way effected ...

Cultural Appropriation or Racism

Tatianap — Sun, 16 Feb 2014 18:31:24 +0000

While on another blog (tumblr.com) I read a post by blogger whitepeoplesaidwhat that really interested me. It reads as follows: “My culture brings all the Whites to the yard. And they’re like, “I’m taking what’s yours, Damn right, it’s mine and not yours! Want it back now? K fine but we’ll have to charge” There are many things I like about it. I like that it is blatantly saying that White people have knowingly taken ...

Life Lessons in Youth Media

jena.verlin — Fri, 07 Feb 2014 19:09:42 +0000

It is always interesting to me to see how psychological theories play out in real life, as well as in the media. I am curious as to whether these occurances are purely mapping an academic concept onto a convenient pop culture item or whether the creators of the content are intentionally trying to teach lessons in an attempt to build a more tolerant future. One such example came to mind, an episode of The Fairly ...

Power Differentials

EmilyBlakeslee — Mon, 03 Feb 2014 03:07:05 +0000

I’m very curious about how we experience power in our everyday lives. It seems to me that power is crucial in our social interactions. When we have power, we feel like we control our circumstances, bringing order to an uncertain and chaotic world. In our social worlds, there are power differentials. That is, people will encounter situations in which one person is perceived or actually has more authority, agency, or knowledge then the other/s. Social ...

The Majority vs. Minority vs. Other Minority Race (pun intended)

AmandaRG — Mon, 03 Feb 2014 02:24:45 +0000

A friend shared another blog with me recently, called Black Girl Dangerous, that I believe has a lot of posts and discussions related to this class. One post (the link is at the bottom) called “Broke on Broke Crime: On Black and Brown Living and Unity,” written by Kitzia Esteva-Martinez, discusses her personal experience being mugged at gun-point by three young boys in her neighborhood. Kitzia identifies as Latina and identified the three boys as Black in ...

Implicit and Explicit Prejudices

Simone — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 03:14:25 +0000

It’s difficult to discuss prejudice without clarifying what it is. The fourth edition of the American Heritage College Dictionary provides four meanings for the term—from “an adverse judgment or opinion formed beforehand or without knowledge or examination of the facts” to “irrational suspicion or hatred of a particular group, race or religion.” Both definitions apply to the experiences of ethnic minorities in Western society. Of course, the second definition sounds much more menacing than the ...

Stereotype Threat

kw237335 — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 03:53:45 +0000

As I was reading the article by Kang and Banaji (2006) I began to really think about stereotype threat, stereotype lift and stereotype boost. I find it very interesting that many social categories perform according to the stereotype that has been placed upon them in many situations. If a woman takes a mathematics test in a group of people with men and women and she knows that her math intelligence is being tested, she will ...

The Privilege Wheel

ccaraway — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 03:02:13 +0000

For Wednesday’s class, we spent a good amount of time discussing the myth of the social identity, and the privilege wheel exercise raised some questions for me. For one, do certain aspects of one’s social identity have more power over the other? How much importance is placed on these aspects? I personally believe that social identities are situational. To say that social identities are situational, I mean to say that when we are met with ...

Are positive stereotypes detrimental?

ccaraway — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 18:59:44 +0000

Recently, I watched Chelsea Lately during a episode of my insomnia. The host, Chelsea Handler, poked fun at one of the guest cohosts that she would go him to fix electronics over the Jewish cohost, because he is Asian. The prodded cohost began ranting about stereotypes, specifically how it’s not O.K. to generalize and assume that every Asian is good at computers. When he was told to relax, and that it’s positive, he responded that ...

Black Student Association Dance

ccaraway — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 03:20:52 +0000

This past weekend I attended the Black Student Association Dance with a friend who graduated last year. The dance was a lot of fun with great people, but I couldn’t help to notice that it was not as big as I had expected it to be. The music was great, the people were fun, and everyone appeared to be having a good time. Why did this event not receive as much attention compared to Greek ...

Can Implicit Attitudes Change?

kw237335 — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 01:54:09 +0000

After completing the IAT last week, I began to really think about the meaning of the test itself and whether the test is a reliable measure of someone’s unconscious thoughts. This thought became even more prevalent after reading the article by Blair (2002) and also the article by Karpinski and Hilton (2001). The articles seem to support the fact that implicit attitudes may be influenced and/or changed by environmental factors and outside forces. I have ...

The Impact of “Positive” Stereotyping on White Social Identity Motivation

Daniel.Greenfield90 — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 04:56:15 +0000

As you watch this video, notice that every player featured in this top ten dunks of all time video is black. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOViQaWZ69E (Now, before I make anymore statements I have to disclaim that this is in no way, shape, or form, anything close to a “reverse racism” blog.) In fact, according to the 2005 census, the National Basketball Association and the National Football League, the professional representations of the two more athletically focused of the ...

Group Identity and Assimilation

Michela — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 01:58:29 +0000

During a discussion about social identity theory, someone asked how race functioned as an identity. Social belief structure is defined by Hogg as, “people’s beliefs about the nature of intergroup relations and their assessment of the validity and effectiveness of different strategies to achieve or maintain positive intergroup distinctiveness,” meaning there is an emphasis on maintaining a group identity that is distinct from other groups, creating a clear “us” “them” dynamic. The five components of ...

Seeing Race and Feeling Shame: The rest of the story

Daniel.Greenfield90 — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 04:55:50 +0000

In their online publication, “Seeing Race and Seeming Racist? Whites Go out of Their Way to Avoid Talking About Race,” the American Psychological Association (I mysteriously could not find an exact author) posits that, in attempt to avoid drawing negative feelings toward themselves, white people often avoid talking about race, even when it is clearly relevant to the situation. In their attempts to be culturally sensitive, however, people who avoid talking about race are often, ...

First Week of Class – Reaction to Class Activity

Jordan — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 07:38:57 +0000

One activity that I appreciated the first week of class was when we each wrote down our different social identities on note cards, mixed up the cards and redistributed them, and then had to say why or why not we thought the card we each received would be in our in-group or out-group. I found this interesting because it made me think about how arbitrary these social identities such as religion, sexual orientation, and disability ...

White Identity Lost

Tennille — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 22:38:08 +0000

Black identity is a topic that is discussed and recognized everyday in our contemporary racism class. They are grouped and recognized as a separate ethnicity in which they promote the distinction between white and black. It never really occurred to me until I read this quote by Lipsitz, that whites have lost their individual ethnic identity. “Urban renewal helped construct a new “white” identity in the suburbs by helping to destroy ethnically specific European American ...

Accessibility & Fit

Liz — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 20:58:36 +0000

After reading this week’s articles what really stood out to me was the Hogg article on Social Identity Theory. In this article Hogg talked about the idea of groups and how individuals are placed or fit into their so called groups. In my opinion the most interesting part of this was what Hogg called accessibility and fit, what identities we find most and least important. In other words accessibility and fit is the system of ...

Where Do We Start?

Keith — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 16:58:10 +0000

During our class this Thursday we briefly touched on the impact of both laws and public opinion on human behavior with particular concern to attitudes about racial issues. In Rebecca Kook’s (1998) article The Shifting Status of African Americans in the American Collective Identity, she traces the development of the African-American identity in America through landmark events in our history driven almost entirely by public opinion. As her article makes painfully obvious, most positive progress, ...

Is “Coming Out” beneficial to homosexual black men?

Keith — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 07:57:54 +0000

In class we have been heavily discussing stereotypes the past couple of weeks and although we have not limited the scope of our discussion to stigmatized groups, it seems those with the most salient stigmatizations inevitable surface in our discussions. This led me to wonder about people who had more than one stigmatized identity, and more specifically, identities that were in conflict with each other. The group I eventually settled on was homosexual black men. ...

Identifying with Race

Tennille — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 13:20:11 +0000

I have been thinking a lot about how silly the concept of being colorblind within society really is. I am currently enrolled in Multicultural psychology and we have been discussing racial identity models. Race is part of the individual’s identity and everyone understands and related to their race and ethnicity on different levels. Not only is racism structurally embedded within our society; it is also what defines the individual. The understanding one might have of ...

Stereotypes as Energy-Saving Devices

KristinK — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 00:51:09 +0000

After reading the article Stereotypes as Energy-Saving Devices: A Peek Inside the Cognitive Toolbox, I have thought a lot about how stereotypes are formed. According to the article we stereotype automatically without being conscious of what we are doing. It makes sense that we put people into certain schema’s, we do it with everything else however it is much more problematic to stereotype or put people into a schema than it is for us to ...