Old Ideas, Bad Attitudes & Villainous Actions
Understanding the slippery slope.
There are three levels at which we can make sense of racial reasoning, generalized.
Stereotype. Prejudice. Discrimination.
So a stereotype exists. It’s not so important how it came to exist. Stereotypes can be negative or positive. But they are associated with a group of people. Like ‘smart people wear glasses’.
Prejudice takes that stereotype and closes your mind to the possibility of an alternative. “If she’s smart and she’s not wearing glasses, maybe she’s not so smart.” Or, “If he’s black and he works in a corporate office, he’s not authentically black.”
Discrimination means that you’re taking action based on your prejudice. “If she’s black and she’s not wearing hoop earrings, I’m not going to put her on my podcast.” Or “If he’s a white police officer, I’m not going to respect him if he stops me.”
People communicate in stereotypes. That’s poor communication.
People judge by stereotypes. That’s prejudicial thinking.
People act on prejudices. That’s discriminatory behavior.
The worst thing about racial stereotypes is that it gives more credibility to the people who fit them, than the people who have nothing to do with it. That’s why people like George Floyd are more well-known than all the black PhDs in the America, and he supposedly represents black people more than they do.
To be clear about it, police kill about 300 black Americans every year. In that same year over 2,100 black Americans earn a PhD. So if you are black in America, you are 7 times as likely to earn a PhD as you are to get killed by a cop. Think about it.
