The early history of the United States was characterized by a harsh separation between the subjugated and the oppressors. This system became interwoven into the nation’s culture, creating a dangerously racialized society that does not allow equality to exist. Racism, a term that first garnered attention in the mid-twentieth century, is regarded as a coordinated form of prejudices, stereotypes, and discrimination but is more all-compassing that any of these. Historically, racism was more prevalent and obvious but less disparaging to the victim that it is today. How then do we obliterate the centuries old racially stratified system that society is operating on today? Claudia Medrano, a second generation Mexican-American psychology major, helps …show more content…
People become concerned that their interactions with people from different groups will be unpleasant and in turn, these anxieties may lead to avoiding people from those out-groups. A strategy to decrease prejudice could be to help people form better connections with members of other groups. Intergroup contact that will reduce prejudice is known as the contact hypothesis (Allport, 1954). An important example of how intergroup contact was used to influence prejudice is the U.S. Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education (1954). The Supreme Court ruled that by allowing Black children to attend schools that were primarily attended by White students, positive intergroup attitudes would be created. This overtime did indeed reduce prejudice between Black and White children and dramatically decreased the number of segregated schools in America during the 1960s. Overall, the case of desegregating schools supports the notion that intergroup contact is successful in changing attitudes. When people learn more about groups that they did not know much about before, they become less biased in their beliefs. In summation, contact will be most effective when members of in-groups become more respectful out-group members and when the social norms of a situation encourage equal treatment of all groups. But if groups …show more content…
This form of racism recognizes overt and intentional forms of racism but also encompasses the role of covert, automatic, and unconscious processes and the indirect expressions of bias. Overt forms of prejudice can be reduced through strategies such as educational reform and attitude change. However, covert forms of prejudice may entail alternative strategies that are geared towards individuals that participate in intergroup contact. These individual-orientated strategies may allow people to discover inconsistencies within their self-image, behavior, and values. These types of inconsistencies can produce negative emotions, like guilt, which motivates people to develop more positive attitudes and behaviors. Intergroup strategies involve creating intergroup contact to create a more individualized perception of members of other groups. Showing intergroup contact can be effective in reducing covert expressions of prejudice (Dovidio et al., 1989). Although automatic covert prejudice can bias behavior (e.g., body posture, speech errors), this may not occur all of the time. It all depends on how conscious people are of the possibility of bias and how much they are willing to fix their biased