This is my third post for the topic of equality and discrimination for the PHT402 Professional Ethics Course.
“I often juxtapose conversations of equality and discrimination using race and sexual orientation (for the purposes of this discussion, I’ve chosen these topics but note that discrimination and equal rights issues are far more broad). Discriminating against people who have different colour skin is just as offensive as discriminating against people who have different sexual orientations, but they are often regarded as being two separate arguments. The reason I present the juxtaposition is that racial discrimination is (relatively) easily challenged using legal, moral and scientific arguments. However, the most common argument proposed against homosexuality is a religious one. Why is this?”
This is a really complicated question, I’m not sure I can do it justice, but I will attempt to give my two cents. To begin with this question would be too ambitious for me, so I will start by talking about my experience/knowledge of racism and how LGBTI are viewed.
According to psychological and cognitive research, we may all be racists to some degree. We subconsciously take in repeated information, attitudes and ideas from the world around us and integrate these ideas into our knowledge base (whether it is correct or not), without realizing it, the term for this in the field of psychology is “subliminal conditioning“. Conditioning also plays a role in learning. So negative attitudes towards people of certain ethnic groups and people identifying with certain sexual orientations can basically be downloaded from the society around you, as long as these attitudes are presented to you repeatedly. We may not be conscious of the stereotypes and prejudices that we are picking up, so in theory we can even be prejudiced against groups that we belong to ourselves. For example, ethnic Africans may subconsciously be associating others of the same group with crime, even when they personally know it is untrue. Or in the case of this video, absolve Caucasians who are viewed as less likely to commit crimes, from participation in theft when the situation was quite damning.
Of course, these are subconscious attitudes, once we realize that we have them we can consciously fight against them and stop ourselves from behaving in a discriminatory way (if we desire to).
In light of this information and in reference to the “How to Tell People They Sound Racist” video on youtube, I agree that telling someone they are a racist will not produce any useful results. Firstly, because everyone has discriminatory thoughts and the potential to carry them out. Secondly, it would only anger the person you labelled a racist and make them less likely to listen to what you say. You will simply reinforce their discriminatory thoughts, because you are damaging their self image with a negative label (that they are a “racist”) and to recover from that they will simply think they are even more right than before.
People cannot be told what to do or think, they can only be persuaded or they will be even more resistant to new ideas. To change their minds, try to challenge their discriminatory statements and thinking with logic and when possible empathize the similarities between groups of people in layman’s terms.
What I guess I am trying to say is, to fight against racism, you have to acknowledge racism and how easy it is to act in a racist way. Don’t categorize people into groups, such as “racist” and “non-racist”. I think that a more helpful concept is simply to acknowledge that there are no “non-racists”. Yes, you can argue that having discriminatory and prejudiced thinking does not make you a racist, because you never acted according to them. But the world is not that simple, you can’t be sure 100% of the time that you never discriminated against someone for something they can’t help, often times that means skin colour which is so readily apparent. We are wired to think in discriminatory ways, to deny that is to not be open with these issues, not accept the consequences of your own actions and not be motivated to change them.
For example, I was motivated to change my view of First Nations people through this video, which really did not focus on that particular group at all:
It was a video of a discussion on a controversial article featured in the Macleans magazine here in Canada where the author was implying that universities have been over populated with asian students. Something about what one of the professors said about how First Nations people and students have been set back by the events of history and continue to be affected by those events really made me think about how they are viewed by mainstream media and society (at 59:11). The analogy was that they were, as a group, set back in the same way that a student who was not given a proper textbook to study from would be. By second term they would already be behind and yet were expected to be as successful as the rest of their classmates, who were not similarly disadvantaged.
Here are some links that may interest you and provide some food for thought when it comes to racism:
-The classic classroom racial experiment, when such things were still allowed (wouldn’t get you sued at least).
Article: Racial bias in perceptions of others’ pain – A worrying research article that actually relates to health care and sports injuries
Article: Smart enough to know better: Intelligence is not a remedy for racism – Food for thought, I have not actually looked at how they conducted their research, but interesting stuff.
Part 2: LGBTI perception…
Mary Sees World 