Discrimination Debate Guide

From PhiloWiki

"Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices – just recognize them." -– Edward R. Murrow

"Nobody outside of a baby carriage or a judge's chamber believes in an unprejudiced point of view." -- Lillian Hellman (1905-84), American playwright

"A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices." -– William James, author of The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902), and Pragmatism (1907)

"It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts." --Arthur Conan Doyle, physician and writer (1859-1930)

"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view." --Harper Lee, writer (1926- )

*****QUESTIONS*****

List as many "ism’s" as you can. i.e. ageism, racism, sexism, elitism, capitalism, dogmatism, egoism, etc.
At what point does an "ism" grow into a phobia?

1 Stereotypes
2 Legal and Ethical Aspects
3 Case Studies
4 Other Resources

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Stereotypes

Stereotype: Assumed inferior characteristics on a large group of individuals whose beliefs, habits, and realities often disagree with the imposed image.

Often the terms stereotype and prejudice are confused:

Stereotypes are a generalization of characteristics; they reduce complexity, provide stability and also can offer opportunities to identify oneself with others.
Prejudices are either an abstract-general preconception or an attitude towards individuals.

Stereotype production is based on:

Simplification
Exaggeration or distortion
Generalization
Presentation of cultural attributes as being 'natural'.
Unshakeable belief in stability of stereotype
Racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination
Historical factors
Guilt by association

Stereotypes are seen by many as undesirable beliefs imposed to justify the acts of discrimination and oppression. It is thought that education and/or familiarization can change these misbeliefs. Other negative effects are:

Justification of ill-founded prejudices or ignorance
Unwillingness to rethink one's attitudes and behavior towards stereotyped group
Self-fulfilling prophecy for both stereotyping and stereotyped group (White people treat black people in a more hostile way due to being afraid of them. Black people accordingly react more aggressively, thus confirming the stereotype...)

On the other hand, stereotypes are a result of our need to selectively perceive our environment. We notice, remember and store the information that is most noticeable (e.g. most strange, different, pleasing or detestable about someone) and that which confirms what we already seem to know. Thus stereotypes help us to 'understand' and structure the complex world around us, because they are 'useful' simplifications. They provide stock-information about what to expect and how to act concerning certain groups of people. However, direct contact with members of this group may modify the stereotype by adding more and more details, until finally it has to be given up, because the necessary oversimplification and generalization are no longer appropriate.

Stereotypes can be negative or positive, even for the same group: Black men are stereotyped to be good musicians and basketball-players, but at the same time seen as aggressive and likely to take and sell drugs. The effects of stereotypes can also have positive and negative effects. For example, students who were implicitly made aware of their gender behaved as the stereotype suggested; Asian-American women performed better in math-tests when being aware of being Asian, and did worse when being reminded of being women. Stereotyping can also be created by the media showing an incorrect judgment of a culture or place, making people into stereotypes.

Stereotypes of groups: Common stereotypes include a variety of allegations about groups based on age, ethnicity, gender, nationality, profession, sexual orientation, race, religious belief, size, physical appearance, or social class. Stereotypes can also be based on individual handicaps.

Stereotypes within groups: A variety of stereotypes usually exist within major social groups, and relate to the variety of identities that exist within their own group. For instance, the western urban lesbian sub-culture has strong sub-group stereotypes regarding butch and femme lesbians; bisexuals; granola dykes; and many other sub-groups within the lesbian subculture.

Stereotypes in culture: Stereotypes are common in the world of drama, where the term is often used as a form of dramatic shorthand for "stock character". In literature and art, stereotypes are clichéd or predictable characters or situations. For example, the stereotypical devil is a red, impish character with horns, bifurcated tail, and a trident, whilst the stereotypical salesman is a slickly-dressed, fast-talking individual who cannot usually be trusted. Throughout history, storytellers have drawn from stereotypical characters and situations, in order to quickly connect the audience with new tales. Sometimes such stereotypes can be very complex and sophisticated, such as Shakespeare's Shylock in The Merchant of Venice. The instantly recognizable nature of stereotypes mean that they are very useful in producing effective advertising and situation comedy. Media stereotypes change and evolve over time.

A stereotype is a standardized conception or image of a specific group of people or objects. Stereotypes are "mental cookie cutters"--they force a simple pattern upon a complex mass and assign a limited number of characteristics to all members of a group. While we commonly use the term as it is applied to human beings, it is quite possible to stereotype objects as well. In popular culture we can examine both types of stereotypes so that we often find people stereotyped around characteristics of:

Age ("All teenagers love rock and roll and have no respect for their elders.")
Sex ("men want just one thing from a woman.")
Race ("All Japanese look and think alike.")
Religion ("All Catholics love the Pope more than their country.")
Vocation ("All lawyers are greedy weasels.")
Nationality ("All Germans are Nazi warmongers.")

Objects can be stereotyped around characteristics of:

Places ("All cities are corrupt and sinful." "Small towns are safe and clean." "In England, it rains all the time.")
Things ("All American cars are cheaply and ineptly made." "A good house has a large lawn, big garage, and at least two bathrooms.").

The standardized conception is held in common by the members of a group. Popular stereotypes are images that are shared by those who hold a common cultural mindset--they are the way a culture, or significant sub-group within that culture, defines and labels a specific group of people. Stereotypes are direct expressions of beliefs and values. A stereotype is a valuable tool in the analysis of popular culture because once the stereotype has been identified and defined, it automatically provides us with an important and revealing expression of otherwise hidden beliefs and values. This means that stereotypes are especially useful in tracing the evolution of popular thought--the way in which the beliefs and values associated with specific groups change over time. American attitudes toward Russians, for example, can be easily marked by the changing nature of the popular stereotype associated with them--from WWII ("fur-hatted vodka drinking comrades-in-arms") to Cold War ("Godless communists in an Evil Empire") to the break-up of the Soviet Union ("poor, hungry victims of a disorganized and self-defeating socialist system").

*****QUESTIONS*****

Think of a time when the stereotypes of a group have been applied to you. How did it feel?
What stereotypes are you wrestling with in your own perceptions of the world?
What ism’s come from your upbringing? What did you do to break out of that kind of thinking?
Why do we feel more strongly about discrimination on certain grounds, such as of race or gender, than of other grounds, such as age or social class?
Compared with when you were of a younger generation (such as your twenties), do you feel that you have more or fewer prejudices? Why do you think this is?
Are words such as hispanic, alcoholic, lawyer, poor, blonde, geek, etc. convenient labels to describe a person or can they be prejudicial? Can we converse without inputting bias?
Do you have some prejudices that bother you and some that you feel are OK? Explain.

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Legal and Ethical Aspects

(First published Fri Dec 28, 2001; substantive revision Fri Mar 4, 2005)

“Affirmative action” means positive steps taken to increase the representation of women and minorities in areas of employment, education, and business from which they have been historically excluded. When those steps involve preferential selection—selection on the basis of race, gender, or ethnicity—affirmative action generates intense controversy.

The development, defense, and contestation of preferential affirmative action has proceeded along two paths. One has been legal and administrative as courts, legislatures, and executive departments of government have made and applied rules requiring affirmative action. The other has been the path of public debate, where the practice of preferential treatment has spawned a vast literature, pro and con. Often enough, the two paths have failed to make adequate contact, with the public quarrels not always very securely anchored in any existing legal basis or practice.

The ebb and flow of public controversy over affirmative action can be pictured as two spikes on a line, the first spike representing a period of passionate debate that began around 1972 and tapered off after 1980, and the second indicating a resurgence of debate in the 1990s leading up to the Supreme Court's decision in the summer of 2003 upholding certain kinds of affirmative action. The first spike encompassed controversy about gender and racial preferences alike. This is because in the beginning affirmative action was as much about the factory, the firehouse, and the corporate suite as about the university campus. The second spike represents a quarrel about race and ethnicity. This is because the burning issue at the turn of the twentieth-first century is about college admissions. In admissions to selective colleges, women need no boost; blacks and Hispanics do.

from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/affirmative-action/ Stanford Encyclopedia on Philosophy

In recognition of the effect that historical experience may have had in delaying or otherwise interfering with U.S. veterans in starting or maintaining their job careers, they are given extra points on civil service exams, as a matter of public policy. May a non-veteran justifiably challenge this veterans-preference policy on the ground that he or she was in no way responsible for the interruption of the veterans career by induction into the military; and indeed may not have been born when that involvement occurred?

If the challenge to veterans' preference on such grounds is rejected as contrary to public policy based on historical reasons, what weight can be given to a challenge of public policy on affirmative action designed to make up for historical impediments to career advancement by African Americans on the grounds that the complainant was not even alive when such impediments were imposed. To cite just two examples: "Whites" from 1840-1865 drove African American wage workers out of longshoring, tobacco manufacture, carting, table waiting, where they had been regularly employed since the founding of the Republic.

The "Cotton Mill Campaign" established the South's flagship manufacturing industry in the late 19th century on the basis of a deliberate "whites-only" employment policy at a time when 90 percent of the African American population lived in that region, in order, it was said "to keep that avenue open to the white man alone," because "the white mill workers ought to be saved from Negro competition."

from http://www.zmag.org/zmag/articles/june95allen.htm Be Fair: Reverse Discrimination

*****QUESTIONS*****

Positive discrimination is the mode of thought that allows compensation for apparent social inequalities through legal advantages. A good example would be a law to ensure a certain percentage of workers were disabled, black, gay, white (such as affirmative action). What are the merits of such a system? Is it 'fair', and in what sense of the word?
Does reverse discrimination exist?
Which is worse: selective or blanket harms?

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Case Studies

What impact do unintended discriminations have on society?

An employer is of the same "race" as his son-in-law and gives preference to the son-in-law, even though there is another applicant of a different "race" who is better qualified for the position under consideration.

Would that constitute racial discrimination? If not, at what distance of affinity--kinship, friendship, private, referral, personal obligation, school or union tie--would the same favoritism become racial discrimination?

A 1983 study by R. J. Cormack and R. D. Osborne, Religion, Education, and Employment: Aspects of Equal Opportunity in Northern Ireland regarding job discrimination against Catholics in Northern Ireland, noted that the still prevailing practice of hiring workers on the informal recommendation of friends and family of the prospective employee, "tend[s] to reproduce the existing patterns of job distributions" as between Protestants and Catholics. The study urged the adoption of the principle that the employer "should not recruit new employees on the recommendation of existing employees. Would the insistence on such a policy in the U.S. help to reduce racial discrimination in employment and favor the best-qualified applicants? Wouldn't this be an acceptable form of affirmative action?

from http://www.zmag.org/zmag/articles/june95allen.htm Be Fair: Reverse Discrimination

When should discrimination be allowed (if ever)?

Recently my School's Student Union has ruled unconstitutional the holding of blood drives on their property. This is due to an article saying that the student union cannot discriminate upon "irrelevant personal characteristics". They consider that the fact that the blood services does not accept blood from men who have had sex with men since 1977 as irrelevant. This is something that studies seem to disagree with but they all agree that the risk of allowing a subset of this excluded population instead of the whole set is very small (on the order of one additional case of AIDS being passed through blood transfusions in Canada every 16 years or so).

But is this something we want? Should we as a society consider the additional expected case to be acceptable considering the psychological harm caused by the discrimination?

On related matter, courts in quebec have agreed that it is acceptable for a certain religious group to bring a ceremonial knife with them to school (high school). This is due to the fact that disallowing this is not allowing their right to practice their religion and therefore discriminatory.

When should a society allow discrimination and when should it not? Should judges be the ones to decide all these cases?

from http://forums.philosophyforums.com/threads/discrimination-24580.html Post by mrousseau on Philosophy Forums

How can we make ourselves more conscious of our prejudices?

The other day I was driving on an expressway. These days expressway driving seems a frantic enterprise. Near one of the exit ramps, one of the highway denizens, a behemoth "semi" had pulled over onto the berm. The driver had emerged and was gathering some wild plants along the side of the road.

In that moment another stereotype bit the dust. I know what truck drivers are like. They are strong, burly masters of profanity, rootless gypsies who have neither homes nor families. They care not a whit for sunsets, mountain peaks, seashores, or wildflowers. But now I have seen one take the time to stop and look carefully at the splendor by the roadside. I've been by that very spot numerous times. Not once did I take the time or trouble to stop and look at the miracles of leaf and flower. Goodbye, shattered image! I think I shall not miss you at all! You were, it should be said, quite convenient. You allowed me the luxury of not having to think of truck drivers as real people, as varied as the vast diversity of wildflowers.

Stereotypic thinking does not impart solidity or dimensionality to an object. Quite the opposite: It dispenses with the details and eliminates the idiosyncrasies of individuals by making them members of a class of things, all of which have identical characteristics. Well, all truck drivers do have a common characteristic -- they do drive trucks. That may exhaust the list of characteristics they share. There's one of them, at least, who notices what is growing beside the road. Quite a feat, actually, at seventy miles an hour.

As the number of people inhabiting our little globe grows, so, I suppose, will the temptation to group people into classes, apply labels to them, and mistake the label for the far more complex reality. Perhaps the image of the truck driver stopping to gather wildflowers by the side of the road can be a reminder of how perilous, how depersonalizing, how diminishing such stereotypes can be. I've had a number of stereotypes pasted on me. As I pause to think about them, I like my own name better than any one of them. I have a hunch that others like their names as well, far better than a label and far, far better than a number. The struggle to maintain a sense of importance for each of us may be long and often difficult. The challenge is quite extraordinary every ordinary day.

from Gordon B. McKeeman

Is it appropriate to make selections soley on the basis of race?

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR, Chronicle of Higher Education

The Impact of Race

To the Editor:

In “Regents’ Diversity Vote Means Trouble for U. of Wisconsin” (The Chronicle, February 23), Peter Schmidt quotes David G. Walsh, president of the Board of Regents, as defending that policy. According to the article, “Mr. Walsh, who is a lawyer, argued that Wisconsin law did not preclude public colleges from considering race ‘as a factor,’ as long as admissions decisions were not wholly determined by it.”

Aside from the question of legality, which the courts will no doubt continue to address, as a simple matter of fact, the argument of Mr. Walsh and nearly all defenders of racial preference — that even under affirmative action, race is no more than one of many factors — is nonsense, except where it is an irrelevant truism.

The irrelevant truism is that race can never be the only factor considered in admissions and hiring decisions, even under a rigid quota system. If it were, selective institutions would have no way of choosing from among their minority applicants. Of course minority applicants must present some qualifications besides their race. ...

Under affirmative action, however, race is virtually always weighed more heavily than its defenders admit. Surely everyone will agree that thanks to racial preferences, some members of minority groups are admitted to selective institutions who would not have been admitted if their race had not been considered. Otherwise, the effort to treat everyone without regard to race would not be so strenuously resisted.

Since considering race means that some minority students will be admitted who otherwise would not have been, was not the admission of those students not only determined but, for all practical purposes, “wholly determined” by their race?

Philosophers can debate the meaning of “necessary but not sufficient,” but with regard to those applicants for whom race was necessary, who would not have been admitted if they had been of another race, it makes no sense to claim that their admission was not determined by their race.

John S. Rosenberg, Crozet, Va.

from http://chronicle.com The Chronicle Review, Volume 53, Issue 30, Page A55 (March 30, 2007)

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