Introduction
America has seen many years of discrimination and equal amounts of social change. It is not uncommon to hear American citizens claim that racism and sexism is over, citing the social movements that abolished the many discriminatory laws that were in place. Despite the many social movements that have aimed to end inequality for minorities in America, discrimination still persists today (CITE). American society stigmatizes blatant racism and sexism, however, many people still harbor prejudiced attitudes and behaviors. Today, America sees a different form of prejudice behavior that is covert and largely unconscious. While these attitudes and behaviors are similar to traditional racism, they hold different origins and characteristics …show more content…
Before deciding on which approach to take, analyzing the contents of modern racism will help identify what an approach should target. Modern racism is held together by both conscious and unconscious thoughts and behaviors. Both the covert and overt are intertwined to make a complex ideology comprised of many parts. To inspire long-term change in the prejudiced mind, one must first investigate the intricacies of prejudiced ideologies. Ideologies that promote and perpetuate discriminatory attitudes likely provide a large foundation that keep these attitudes alive. Prejudice attitudes are likely to be positively correlated with prejudice behavior (Lai et al., 2014) giving a clear first step in analyzing the prejudice mind of today. Knowing this, unraveling the foundation that fuels the behavior is a promising approach. A name for this foundation is color-blind racism, first introduced by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva (2001). Color-blind racism suggests that racism seen today is subtle and buried underneath an entire ideology that is inherently discriminatory. Understanding this ideology could give important insights into effective approaches for changing prejudiced behaviors. For a topic such as prejudice, however, simply attacking the explicit is likely not enough to effectively reduce prejudice for long
America has seen many years of discrimination and equal amounts of social change. It is not uncommon to hear American citizens claim that racism and sexism is over, citing the social movements that abolished the many discriminatory laws that were in place. Despite the many social movements that have aimed to end inequality for minorities in America, discrimination still persists today (CITE). American society stigmatizes blatant racism and sexism, however, many people still harbor prejudiced attitudes and behaviors. Today, America sees a different form of prejudice behavior that is covert and largely unconscious. While these attitudes and behaviors are similar to traditional racism, they hold different origins and characteristics …show more content…
Before deciding on which approach to take, analyzing the contents of modern racism will help identify what an approach should target. Modern racism is held together by both conscious and unconscious thoughts and behaviors. Both the covert and overt are intertwined to make a complex ideology comprised of many parts. To inspire long-term change in the prejudiced mind, one must first investigate the intricacies of prejudiced ideologies. Ideologies that promote and perpetuate discriminatory attitudes likely provide a large foundation that keep these attitudes alive. Prejudice attitudes are likely to be positively correlated with prejudice behavior (Lai et al., 2014) giving a clear first step in analyzing the prejudice mind of today. Knowing this, unraveling the foundation that fuels the behavior is a promising approach. A name for this foundation is color-blind racism, first introduced by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva (2001). Color-blind racism suggests that racism seen today is subtle and buried underneath an entire ideology that is inherently discriminatory. Understanding this ideology could give important insights into effective approaches for changing prejudiced behaviors. For a topic such as prejudice, however, simply attacking the explicit is likely not enough to effectively reduce prejudice for long