Hello and welcome to the first lecture on intergroup bias where we are going to be talking about definitions.
So the first thing to do is give a warning. And that warning is probably
something that you’re expecting to hear. And that is that this chapter is probably
the most sensitive chapter we’ll be learning about this semester. And that’s because
there are still many culturally accepted forms of intergroup bias. And people are very sensitive
to their own negative experiences. And there are some people who feel that other people
use accusations of intergroup bias as a scapegoat and say intergroup bias has prevented them
from achieving, when it was really that they weren’t working hard. And there’s truth
to both sides. But our job in this class is not to say who is wrong or right or who experienced
worse things. Our job is to learn the definitions, types, causes and consequences of intergroup
bias. And then we can talk about it while honoring everyone’s right to have different
opinions. Again, our position is not to judge but it’s to learn more about this so we
can move forward and have intelligent, academic discussions about the topic. And that’s
what we’ll be doing in class. So the point of these videos is to educate everybody so
we’re all on the same page about the scope of what we’re talking about. Not to say
that one group was wrong or one group was right. And then we’ll talk about it in class
respectfully and be able to have, I hope, a good conversation about intergroup bias
in today’s society.
I’ll start talking about terms I’ll be using in class. And I’ll be using the terms
Black and White versus African-American and Caucasian-American. And here’s why. If I
use the word African-American, I am only talking about people who are American and who have
African ancestry and that’s actually not as big of a population as people who we would
like to talk about. For example, if I say African-American, that doesn’t include people
who have African ancestry who live in Great Britain. And it certainly doesn’t include
people who live in Australia who have Aboriginal ancestry. They would consider themselves neither
African nor American. So in this class, I’ll be using the term Black because I believe
it is a more inclusive word that we can use and we can then talk about everybody whose
experiences we think are relevant.
So what are stereotypes. Stereotypes are beliefs about a group. So they come from somebody’s
head. And they are generally negative. So the idea that women are too emotional to be
good leaders is a negative stereotype. But they can also be neutral. So someone could
believe that Latinos have large families. That’s not necessarily a good or bad thing.
And they could be positive. They could believe that gay men are always stylish. Stereotypes
are just beliefs that people have.
Okay. Prejudice is the feelings or attitudes somebody has about a group. And that’s why
I point to the heart. This is how you feel. A pretty common example of prejudice is to
say, “I don’t like Muslims.” So prejudice is generally negative, but it can also be
positive. So somebody could say, “I like Asian women.” So while we might consider
that a positive prejudice, the experience of that can actually be negative. It can not
feel good to experience that. I’m going to have you pause this video and watch this
video here. It’s a funny video that will probably make you laugh. You’ll understand
more about how the experience can be negative. Once you finish watching that, come back and
we’ll continue talking about prejudice.
So I think hopefully you laughed some. And you can see how the experience of this stereotype
was considered to be a positive prejudice, in this case, liking White men can really be quite negative.
Where somebody just treats everything about your culture as homogenous and you feel like
that person doesn’t actually like you for you but likes for something that they think
you represent, but isn’t actually very accurate. So while we could say that a prejudice is
positive, in general, the experience of prejudice is most likely to be negative because people
are going to feel like they are being put into a box.
So discrimination is an actual behavior. It’s a behavior towards a person based on group
membership and is generally considered negative. So if you have a judge who always gives harsher
punishments to Black defendants than White defendants, then that judge is discriminating
against Black defendants. However, I want to clarify, if you have a judge who gives
a harsh penalty to a Black defendant, you cannot say that that judge is discriminating.
You have to look at whether there is a pattern of behavior. One of the problems we end up
having in our class discussions is that people use the example of one person who is experiencing
negative outcomes and say it’s discrimination. The problem is, it’s not actually discrimination.
What you have to say is that it’s a pattern where all people that are in a particular
group are treated negatively relative to another group.
So now that we’ve defined what discrimination is, let’s talk about whether or not sexism
exists against men. The answer is definitely yes. So it is possible for men to experience
sexism. So this is a kind of a sexist onesie. The onesie is supposed to be funny. The idea
is that the dad is so incompetent that he can’t figure out how to put this thing on
a baby and I know many men that would be offended by this. I don’t like the implication that
I’m such a moron that I literally can’t figure out how to put a shirt on my kid. If
you watch videos or ads or TV or anything, you often see that men are being portrayed
as incompetent when it comes to household things like doing the dishes or taking the
kids to school or figuring out what to make for dinner. And generally, it’s meant to
be very funny that this guy just can’t get together and the wife comes in and saves the
day. And frequently when I’m watching these, I think, you know, there would be huge uproar
if the roles were reversed and the woman were being displayed as incompetent and the man
was the one who came in and fixed everything. So this is the first example of me not trying
to say that one group‘s experience is worse than the other but I am trying to say that
it’s important to be aware of both group’s experiences. Because if you trivialize the other
group’s experiences, you’re not really going to be listening to them and you won’t
really be able to have an intelligent conversation with them.
The next slide gets even more controversial.
I’m going to tackle a pretty controversial
question. We’re going to talk about whether Black people can be racist. There is a movie
called “Dear White People” which is about Black people’s experiences on a college
campus. It’s not a documentary; it’s a drama. And in the movie, this person, this
student, makes an argument for why Black people can’t be racist. And she does it very well
and very eloquently. So rather than restate it myself, I will have you watch this clip
and come back to this lecture once you finish watching it.
Okay. So she is essentially saying that because Black people can’t benefit from cultural
racism, Black people can’t be racist. Well the other side of that argument is that racism
is just favoring one group over another. And if that’s the case, then Black people certainly
can be racist because Black people can favor one group over another. And so, from a social
psychological perspective, we would say that it is possible for Black people to be racist.
But, and this is important, again, we are not trying to say who is the worst person
or who has experienced the most racism. While indeed a Black person can be racist, that
Black person has most likely experienced large amounts of racism in his or her life. It oversimplifies
things to say that either you experience racism or you behave in racist manners. And
we are in college now and we understand that things aren’t always so one way or the other.
And so in this class, we’ll be able to talk about how you can do both. You can be someone
who behaves in a racist manner and you can be someone who experiences racism.