racial discourse

observations or questions on how/why to talk about race and racism with others

Is Prejudice Inevitable?

by

After reading the Devine article I became increasingly curious with the idea of  how inevitable prejudice and racial stereotyping really is in today’s society. In Devine’s article she states “Inhibiting stereotype-congruent or prejudice-like responses and intentionally replacing them with nonprejudiced responses can be likened to be the breaking of a bad habit” (Devine, P.G. 1989). There are many people who are under the notion that we live in post racial society; but as we have …

Read more

Racism is the Norm, It is Everywhere

by

In an article by Adams et al, entitled “Beyond Prejudice: Toward a Sociocultural Psychology of Racism” Adams discusses many misconceptions people have about racism in today’s American society.  One point made stated that racism is a product of abnormal personalities.  Most people would swear up and down that they do not have a racist bone in their body, because being called racist is a fear of many.  The term “abnormal” infers that racist is not …

Read more

What Do You Stand For When You “Stand Your Ground”?

by

Many Americans have been following the Jacksonville, Florida case of Michael Dunn and Jordan Davis for the past few weeks. Dunn, a middle aged white man, fired ten shots into an SUV occupied with black teenage boys because of his frustration with their refusal to turn down the loud music they were playing. One of the boys, 17-year old Jordan Davis, was hit by three of those shots, and killed. Yes, you read that synopsis …

Read more

Racism Takes Center Stage

by

Recently, I remembered a video I watched last semester in my Developmental: Inclusion/ Exclusion class. This video was from ABC’s What Would You Do; this video includes both a white and black actor who are stealing a bike from the park. Both boys have multiple different forms of equipment to remove the bike from the locked bike rack, both boys are wearing the same type of clothing. The only difference about these two teenage boys …

Read more

What Would You Do?

by

I recently watched a video from the What Would You Do? reality show about a black woman harassing a white woman because she is dating a black man.  (You can watch the video here)  The scenes were filmed in Denny Moe’s barber shop in Harlem.  The black woman (Rachael the barber), white woman (Kristen the girlfriend), and black man (Gabriel the boyfriend) are all actors and the premise of the show is to see how …

Read more

How Do You Use Social Science to Adapt to Racism?

by

Martin Luther King’s address at the APA’s Annual Convention in 1967 featured many points that he wanted to make about events from the Civil Rights Movement to the Vietnam War. His main goal, however, was to address this audience to let them know that the social sciences had a place in this fight too. By saying statements such as “Social scientists…are fortunate to be able to extirpate evil, not to invent it” he is suggesting …

Read more

President Obama and the Promotion of the American Dream

by

After our class pulled apart a speech that Obama gave before he was elected president in 2008, I knew that I wanted to pay extra special attention to his first State of the Union speech of the new year. The former speech had been constructed around comments made by Reverend Wright, the former pastor for Obama and his family. Reverend Wright made comments about the state of the country in terms of race, and how …

Read more

Life after class…

by

After completing this class a little over a year ago I wanted to share with fellow members of the class what has truly stuck with me. I visit this blog again today to stress the importance of continuing your journey in the awareness, knowledge, and understanding of contemporary racism. As many of you know it is not a quick fix and I have realized that becoming culturally competent will take years of work in understanding myself, my biases, and the contributions of the world around me. In addition to this process taking time I encourage that you find allies in this journey. Without allies I do not think I would be able to continue in the fight for social justice. It is hard, emotional, and at times very uncomfortable but with the help of friends you can overcome these obstacles.

Read more

Can we talk race and healthcare?

by

As we have discussed in other class sessions and reading, racism often occurs unintentionally potentiated by unconscious prejudice and stereotypes. To the extent that many people are unaware of their biases, there is little motivation for change.

As a healthcare provider, I have worked in predominately white owned practices privately and publicly and have found that not only do minorities and others marginalized groups receive among other treatments, substandard medical and nursing care, but that often time racism is the fuel motivating the delivery of such care. Often times patients of color are unable to effectively voice these sentiments due to stereotypes threats, and healthcare providers often becomes offended that they are in essences being accused of being a racist.

Read more

A Story of the Way Racism Manifests Itself Today

by

I recently spoke to my mom the other day and she told me a story about her best friend from high school that I thought was particularly interesting for purposes of our class. Her friend Carrie adopted three children from China since she was never able to have her own children. The middle child is currently a senior in high school and for the past few years has been struggling with a disorder known as Reactive Attachment Disorder. Here is an explanation of the disorder to provide a background for the actions of Carrie’s daughter:

Read more

Taking The Next Step

by

Throughout the past few weeks I have noticed many people posting comments about Trayvon Martin on Facebook. Their comments range from different news articles, pictures of a boy holding skittles and their own personal opinions filled with anger at the injustice of the situation. Whereas I am glad to see that these individuals are clearly outraged by what happened, I also know that these postings are their only efforts to speak out against this problem. Many of the postings I have seen were from students here and the number of postings I saw that demonstrated disagreement did not match the number of people who attended the talk about the Trayvon Martin case at the Multicultural center the other week, as I did not see any of my peers who were posting these things in attendance.

Read more