Blog #3

"They almost always portrayed the poor as shiftless, mindless, lazy, dishonest, and unworthy. Students in the dormitory were quick to assume that anything missing had been taken by the black and Filipina woman who work there" (Seeing and Making Culture P.195)

           Prejudice surrounds us whether we like it or not. It can be benevolent or hostile. Regardless of which form it takes, that only shows its intent. The damage that can be inflicted by either form can be equally severe and tragic. This brings us to the larger question of, how is prejudice is so abundant in our culture?

          During the reading titled, Seeing and Making Culture, the quote above captured my attention. I believe it was impactful for a few significant reasons. The first of which is the setting it took place in. A university can be an incredibly diverse setting. It is where I expected a high level of tolerance and understanding. In my own opinion, it is where individual begin to separate with the views they develop growing up in any number of environments and begin to develop new ideas with more world mindedness.  This clearly was not the case for the author.

         This author pointed out just how awful prejudice can be on a college campus. It appears to be a tragic cycle or association and reinforcement. Instead of fostering this cycle we need to understand how to break it. For this I read the article How We Learn Prejudice?. It established that prejudice is learned through the Social Learning Theory much like many other values. I believe this is what makes it so dangerous. It starts with stereotyping a group of people. This is then reinforced by our peers who also believe in that stereotype. This encourages other students to "model" and believe in those stereotypes.

         I believe all aspects of this are illustrated in the quote I chose. To begin with stereotyping, some of these students and professors had developed views on certain groups of individuals. In this example, it was poor students. They were labeled as dishonest and unworthy. This idea was then spread amongst others which reinforced these ideas. When this topic came up in conversations students who did not believe these ideas would not speak up do to the pressure of the situation. This leads to more people believing there is no opposition to this idea, resulting in more individuals believing in it. This explains why prejudice is so visible in our society.

         This reading motivated me to stay vigilante towards situations similar to the one described in the quote. I gained an understanding of how prejudice grown to astonishing levels and how simply speaking up against the ideas behind it can help slow or prevent the effects of it.