Discriminatory Act Of 1964

Before this summer break, my understanding of discrimination and the ramifications of this act were pretty much carved into stone, I thought I understood all there was to know about the faults of being a victim of this act. I genuinely sympathized with those that found themselves confined to opportunities directed by their outward appearances and mannerisms, but it wasn’t until this summer that I got a real dose of what that felt like. Before our summer break, my older sister and I made plans to partake in academic internships and expand on our learning experiences. I went to the capital of my state for a short informational academic experience and my sister went to another state to contribute to a medical research program, for another year, …show more content…
This act, according to the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, establishes that it is “unlawful to discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race or color in regards to hiring termination, promotion compensation or privilege of employment”. While this law bans the act of discrimination, it fails to come up with reasoning behind how and why discrimination comes or how to come about preventing this act. Psychology explains that the possible reasons behind discriminatory acts is due to four factors; authoritarian personality, the conflict theory, stereotypes, the social identity theory and conformity. People with authoritarian personalities form aggressive mannerisms and traditional values that categorize others into “us” and “them” groups that eventually form into superior and inferior categories. The conflict theory develops as a result of competition for scarce resources. This eventually triggers conflict between two groups and later on prejudice and discriminatory behavior. When we form stereotypes we place people into categories in order to form general understanding of the groups, sometimes by doing this we ignore the differences between people. And finally, the Social identity theory points to the fact that in order to increase our self-image we as individual enhance the status of the group we belong to by degrading the group we do not belong to. And finally when we conform, we adopt social norms and behaviors from those within our own social groups, how then does this translate to a solution? Well, if these explanations are accurate, the root of the problem would come not from our personal social groups but our understanding of the values of those within as well as those excluded from our social groups. If a possible explanation for how the new research