Racism (Essay Sample)

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Racism is the belief that races of humans have distinct characteristics that determine their particular cultures, typically involving the idea that other peoples race are inferior and hence they have an absolute right to dominate or rule over them. Racism prevents or hinders diversity by keeping people of different races away from one's state or province or county, or even town. (Minard, 1992)
In a greatly increasingly multicultural society, the question tackling on how race influences social interaction is of practical as well as great theoretical importance. On a daily basis, almost all Americans encounter people with different racial and ethnic backgrounds from their own. The discourse about current political, social, cultural events and any other emerging issues in the contemporary America mostly turns to race-relevant topics. Sometimes these multicultural interactions go smoothly and result to positive and productive collaboration and partnerships (Pettigrew, 2001). However, other times these interactions lead to a lot of tension with anxiety and miscommunication, resulting to a variety of negative consequences.
Social inequality or social inequity is a situation in which one group of people does not obtain the same life opportunities as other ethnic groups of people. Inequities in a society vary and often constitute gender and wealth inequities (Frantz, 2012). Furthermore, racial inequity. Makes it possible for one person to undergo inequities for various reasons. For instance, poor and homeless person living on the Los Angeles streets most likely experiences social inequality. Passers-by end up treating this individual much differently from the way they treat a carefully coifed businessman sitting on a nearby park bench only some few feet away. The homeless person may be treated with looks of disdain and disrespect or even distrust while the carefully presented businessman is admired.
Prejudice and acts of discrimination have been dominant throughout human history. Prejudice has to do with the rigid and irrational opinions and attitudes held by members of a specific group about a different group while discrimination is the behavior directed in opposition to another group. Psychologists and sociologists hold that some of the emotionality in prejudice are caused by subconscious attitudes that lead a person to ward off their feelings of inadequacy by directing them onto a specific target group (Frantz, 2012). They believe that those individuals are the source of all their problems. Social research in the contemporary world has proved that prejudice is basically related to low self‐esteem.