Prejudice and Discrimination :
At present situations, there is a direct link between
prejudice and discrimination. Unjustified negative feelings or attitudes on any
one group of people by another group of people is called as Prejudice, which
includes sexism, Racism, Homophobia and other religious feelings. As the
definition states this prejudice has no reasons or it cannot be justified why
they develop these negative feelings. This is just preformed.
Say if group A people have prejudices towards group B
people, then all the actions that group A people take against group B people is
termed to be Discrimination. Racism (separation of blacks and whites during
American Civil rights movement- past) and female workers being paid lower wages
compared to male workers by a male employer (Sexism) in present day society are
few examples of discrimination.
Reasons for Prejudice and Discrimination :
There might be several
reasons why people con become prejudiced. The first one I would like to mention
is influence of parents. I must accept that my parents had not a very good
feeling towards one of my friend because of his race and they said not to
maintain a healthy relation with him when I was a child. I blindly believed
them and I started hating him based on the instructions given by my parents. As
young children accept what parents say, they will accept including their
prejudices as I did in my childhood. These are very hard to break down in later
life. In other case, prejudice can come out of ignorance, knowing very little
about the group they have prejudice. The next reason I would say include fear,
as I know a person who is Irish and dont know a good English, behaviour or
customs here, he is afraid of whites and thus he developed a feeling of
heatedness. And the last but not the least would be because of the pride that
they feel that their race is superior to others leading them to think that the
others must be inferior. So summing up in my view, Influence of Elders, Ignorance, Fear and Pride are major reasons of
Prejudice.
Any action performed by any single group towards other
group of their prejudice, are under discrimination. We can develop rules or
acts to make discrimination illegal but prejudice cannot be eliminated by any
external sources or rules as its one's own attitude and feelings. As we can
see, we do have racial discrimination as illegal act by race related rules but
we do not have racial prejudice as illegal acts.
(a) Discrimination in Society in General:
As listed already above, low wages being paid to female
workers is an example of discrimination in society in general. I would like to
quote some more examples of such cases, one is uproar caused by the re-election
of President Obama for his second
term as President. After his re-election, some states threatened to secede from
United States, it claiming that a black man could not run a country or that he
wasnt truly a US born Citizen. I also would like to quote the example of
elections in India, where Sonia Gandhi
was not allowed to rule the country as Prime Minister as she wasnt an Indian
and an Italian. So in these cases, act of threatening to secede and not
allowing Sonia Gandhi to be Prime minister of India are examples of
discriminations.
(b) Discrimination against police officers:
As per my understanding and research, discrimination
against police officers or law enforcement officers in present day scenario is
mainly based on sexual orientation and Gender Identity. I would like to mention
some statistics based on the research I did.
·
Over two-thirds
of LGBT law enforcement officers in a 2009 survey reported they they will be
hearing homophobic comments on the job and over half of them reported being
treated like an outsider by their colleagues daily.
·
Surveys on
non-LGBT officers also document high rates of discriminatory attitudes. For
example, one in four surveyed police chiefs in Texas indicated that they would
have difficulty working with a gay man.
(c) Discrimination towards minorities by police officers:
The first thing came into my mind when it comes to
discrimination towards minorities by police officers is "Racial
Discrimination in stop and frisk". We can see that in many of the surverys
done in past, the people who are stopped by police officers are mainly blacks.
Also the people whom police officers would doubt in drug rocketing incidents
are blacks. I would like to mention that after arrested more number of people
to be detained while facing a felony trail in New York too are blacks. Coming
to our system, in 2009, reports of US sentencing commission, there is more
likely chances for an African American to get compulsory sentence compared to
Whites and also as per 2010 reports, it is mentioned that African Americans
receive 10% longer sentences than whites.
Strategies:
·
Learn
about your community (e.g., what groups live there, what has been the nature of
their relationships, what incidents have occurred in the past due to racial
prejudice or racism)
·
Document
activities in your community that reflect racial prejudice or racism.
Documentation will show proof that there is a problem, especially when the
community is in denial that racism exists.
·
Actively recruit and hire a racially and ethnically diverse
staff.
·
Talk to the people of color on your staff and ask them what
barriers or attitudes they face at work. Examine your newsletter or other
publications and look out for negative portrayals, exclusion, or stereotypes.
·
Form a diversity task force or club. Recognize holidays and
events relating to a variety of cultural and ethnic groups in schools.
References:
1. http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/research/workplace/law-enforcement-discrim-2000-13/#sthash.gO5lb91d.dpuf
2. http://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/culture/cultural-competence/reduce-prejudice-racism/main
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