Blog Submission #1 – Social Inequality

           Racism and prejudice is not dead.  I live in Southern California. I am a mixed-race person who converted to Islam. Trust me when I say, racism and prejudice is not dead.  My father is Caucasian and my mother is Hispanic.  My father will swear to anyone who listens that racism is dead and people need to stop complaining and using it as a crutch.  My father does not consider the discrimination that has happened to me in my past, discrimination.  He considers it as people using “stereotypes” and as he says, “You chose to become one of those Muslims.”  What he doesn’t realized is that stereotypes are an ally to racism and prejudice.  This is not to create a pity party for myself. This is to show a snapshot of racism and prejudice being very much alive.  With the example above in mind, this article will center around Stereotype Threat.

                What is stereotype threat? Stereotypes are defined as ideas about the characteristics of other groups (Healey and O’Brian, 2015:72). “Stereotype threat is being at risk of confirming, a self-characteristic, a negative stereotype about one's group.” (Steele and Aronson, 2017)   Stereotypes are a tool that prejudice and racism use. A stereotype will allow for selective perception. Selective perception is a tendency to see something from one side and a prejudice individual will reinforce this perception, this perception will not be challenged by evidence (Healey and O’Brian, 2015:73). 

                As seen in the videos above, stereotypes reinforce racism and prejudice.  The threat of those stereotypes can have just as much of an effect if not more. How does this work? Well first, how is a stereotype established? In the flowchart below stereotype reinforcement is shown.  It is a cycle that is continuous.  A stereotype can be positive or negative, they are conditioned in the same way. For example, Girls are bad at math.  Susie goes to school and loves math, she decides to pursue an engineering degree. She has grown up with the stereotype that girls are worse at math then boys.  She feels anxiety and pressure to perform on behalf of womankind. Due to high levels of anxiety her scores are affected. The stereotype is affirmed for her and others. The cycle continues to repeat itself and leads to societal conditioning.  These stereotypes are further used by those who are prejudice to reinforce their ideas and to justify their way of thinking.  Even when shown evidence prejudice individuals are not likely to take it into account (Healey and O’Brian, 2015:72).

Steele studied how college student that were black or white performed on a test.  The first two studies had the stereotype vulnerability embedded in them.   This allowed Steele to see how stereotype threat affect them. In the third study, stereotype threat was removed. They found the black and whites scored equally on tests when race was not an issue. Steele explains that when race was an issue the Black college students had a fear of showing that Black students did worse than White students on tests.  When race wasn’t an issue they didn’t have that fear and anxiety.  So, they performed the same.

In another study, Magdalena Zawisza and Marco Cinnirella, wanted to find out if advertisements that were using nontraditional roles of men and women in advertising had an effect. These roles although nontraditional were also being shown with negative and positive. They found that the ad was effective either way (Zawisza and Cinnirella, 2010).  Further showing how stereotypes are embedded into the fabric of our society. The negative ones in ads does not affect the ad itself.

                In conclusion, it is the duty of every individual to call out stereotypes.  To not allow them to be reinforced through themselves and each other.  Amal shows how she fights back stereotypes every day.  She explains, how these stereotypes only define us if we allow them to.  Amal Kassir says, “The maliability of a person’s story must be self-determined.”

Sources Cited:

      Healey, Joseph F., and Eileen O'Brien. Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Class: The Sociology of Group Conflict and Change. 7TH ed. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 2015. Print.

     How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do - Claude Steele. Perf. Claude Steel.How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do. Facing History and Oursleves, 3 Apr. 2015. Web. 28 Feb. 2017.

     The Muslim on the Airplane | Amal Kassir | TEDxMileHighWomen. Perf. Amal Kassir.Tedx Mile High Women. Tedx Talks, 14 Dec. 2016. Web. 28 Feb. 2017.

     Steele, Claude M., and Joshua Aronson. "Stereotype Threat and the Intellectual Test Performance of African Americans." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology69.5 (1995): 797-811. APA Psych Net. Web. 28 Feb. 2017. <http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/69/5/797/>.

     Threat of Stereotypes | Social Experiments Illustrated | Channel NewsAsia Connect.Threat of Stereotypes | Social Experiments Illustrated | Channel NewsAsia Connect. CNA Insider, 2 June 2014. Web. 28 Feb. 2017.

      Zawisza, Magdalena, and Marco Cinnirella. "What Matters More-Breaking Tradition or Stereotype Content? Envious and Paternalistic Gender Stereotypes and Advertising Effectiveness." Journal of Applied Social Psychology 40.7 (2010): 1767-797. Journal of Applied Social Psychology. Web. 28 Feb. 2017.