NOVEMBER 5TH, 2014

PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION

SCENARIO: Imagine you are travelling alone on a 20 hour plane ride. Checking in, you learn that the plane is almost full, but the service agent says he will let you choose your seatmate. There are 5 seats left. Remember, this is a long flight, so choose wisely.

AIRPLANE GAME

Passenger 1 is a basketball playerPassenger 2 is a refugeePassenger 3 is a person with a bald head and

multiple piercingPassenger 4 is a forger high-security prisonerPassenger 5 is a woman from Iran

Passengers

Why did you choose who you did?What drew you to them?What exactly did you want to know about

them?What kinds of questions did you want to ask

them?Why did you NOT choose the other

passengers?

Discussion Questions

Passenger 1-Kendra Ohama

Passenger 2 – Michaëlle Jean

Passenger 3 – Enas El-Atrash

Passenger 4 – Nelson Mandella

Passenger 5 – Anousheh Ansari

Were you surprised by who the passengers turned out to be? Why or why not?

Were your assumptions correct? How’d you arrive at them?

Reflect

Visualizing the Invisible

Part 1

On a piece of paper, write 5 things you wish people knew about you

Visualizing the Invisible

Part 2

Write down 3 things people often assume about you

Visualizing the Invisible

Part 3 - Reflect

What are the VISIBLE and INVISIBLE parts of your identity? How do these relate to people’s

perception of you?

How accurate are the assumptions we make about other people?

Visualizing the Invisible

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-Umf_chNHw

A prejudice is a prejudgement or assumption about a person or a group of people without adequate knowledge of who they are

Often based on stereotypes

Racial prejudice involves beliefs that certain racial groups are innately inferior to others

Prejudice

Stereotype: A stereotype is an idea or belief that assumes the sameness of all members of a particular group

There is no such thing as a positive stereotype

Stereotype

Discrimination is an action based on prejudiced attitudes. It is unfair/inequitable treatment of someone based on their race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, ability, age, socio-economic status, language, faith or other part of their identity, and it can be conscious or unconscious.

To discriminate, one group MUST have social, economic, and/or political power to affect another group

Discrimination

Systemic social privilege is power that is NOT earned and that often is invisible to the holder

This privilege gives us an unfair and unearned advantage over others

SYSTEMIC SOCIAL PRIVILEGE

is a set of ideas that implies the superiority of one social group over another on the basis of biological or cultural characteristics, together with the power to put these beliefs into practice in a way that denies or excludes minority women and men

4 types: Overt, Polite, Subliminal, and Institutional

Racism

Symbolic Interactionist Perspectives-contact hypothesis

Functionalist Perspectives-Assimilation cultural, structural, biological-Ethnic Pluralism equalitarian and inequalitarian

Conflict Perspectives-internal colonialism and the split-labour-market theory

Feminist Perspectives

Sociological Perspectives on Race