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Zoe Jackson

Professor Mertz

OGL 350

12 July 2022

Module 2: Paper

The focus of this module’s paper is prejudice, discrimination, privilege, and bias which

are all hot-topic issues in today’s society as we are able to capture and see these concepts more

clearly in organizations and life around us. Before exploring the articles and the short story

provided in this week’s learning materials, I was aware of prejudice and discrimination, and

truthfully I thought I knew a bit more than the average person about how these concepts affect

those around me. I like to think of myself as more aware of social justice politics than the

average person, but I do know that I have privilege as a white woman and have had better

opportunities presented to me due to it. Regardless of how I view myself and my views, the truth

is that we are all products of our environment and even though I do not share the same ideas or

feelings as those I was raised around, my family are not the most understanding and welcoming

to people that are not like them. That is why I was surprised to see that after I took the race

implicit association test that I suggested a strong automatic preference for European Americans

over African Americans. This could be attributed to not being surrounded by people of color for

a majority of my life, but overall is a psychological response. I was aware that discrimination and

prejudice are still issues we face as a society today, but I was not aware that they are ‘often

subtle and difficult to detect (Nier 207)’ as I pictured these concepts as loud and obvious actions.
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Discrimination is also often thought of as occurring to groups that have historically been

subjected to large amounts of it: religious individuals, African Americans, and women being the

bigger three. But after reading and learning more about discrimination I was made aware that any

person or group of people can face discrimination and it may be subtle or obvious. Daniels and

Thornton stated that ‘modern racism theory contends that “old-fashioned” overt racism has

become more modern and taken on the form of subtle, rationalized indirect bigotry (Daniels and

Thornton 322)’. One of the most shocking instances of discrimination I found through the

readings was that ‘Blacks are about five times more likely to be killed by police officers than are

Whites and….individuals, including law enforcement professionals, are likely to react more

swiftly to non-Whites in the application of deadly force (Nier 209)’. This seems like something

that a majority of society seems to know already, considering the rise in protests and support for

the Black Lives Matter movement, but I was unaware of the actual rate at which African

Americans are getting killed by police as opposed to white Americans.

Piggybacking off of the instance of police, a time in my life where I could recognize my

privilege could be any of the moments that I have had with police officers. Considering the

amount of police killings that make national news multiple times a week in the United States, I

get nervous any time that I get stopped and pulled over by a police officer. But considering my

privilege as a white woman, I have been released with a warning for every instance that I have

been stopped. If I was a person of color I truly believe these instances would have gone a

different direction, either ending with an infraction or worst case scenario a violent encounter. To

read that African Americans are killed at a rate five times more than whites opened my eyes to

just how much privilege I carry as a person just by being born white. Considering that my voice

has more reach as a white person as well, I do my best to empower the voices of people of color,
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people who are marginalized, and those who feel their voices fall on deaf ears due to things they

cannot control.

Reflecting on the short stories offered by the New York Times, I chose to view and watch

the conversation with Latinos over the conversation with a white person. This choice was made

because I live in Texas and a majority of the people I interact with on a day-to-day basis are

Latino, and I wanted to hear about race relations from some of their points of view. While

watching the video clip I tried to relate any of my experiences as a white woman to any of the

opinions held by all the Latinos interviewed, and found myself coming up short. I never knew

that identity was such a vast and complex subject for people of the Latino community.

Considering all the different areas of the world that are populated by people considered to be

‘Latino’, a single individual can hold many different identities about who they are and engulfing

themselves in each culture of the identities seems hard to balance. One Latina in the clip for

example was American, Black, and Latina and said that it was ‘a lot to navigate’ (Brewster).

Trying to relate to her experience was hard for me as I do not know much of my heritage or

cultural background, so I do not have these identities to latch onto and grow into.

While I cannot think of any instances of obvious discrimination or prejudice in the

organization I am currently at, I can think of a subtle instance of it. Most of the subtle acts of

prejudice are through racial microaggressions, which Sue defines as ‘brief and commonplace

daily verbal, behavioral, and environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that

communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults to the target person or

group (Sue 273)’. The instance that I will be referring to used the microinvalidation form of

racial microaggressions, which is when actions or words are used to negate or exclude the

thoughts and feelings of people of color. This instance is a bit ironic, as it was during a
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sensitivity training to be more aware of our biases as individuals and as a company. We were

going through training to be more inclusive of all people, regardless of their race, gender,

sexuality, income status, and other variables. The microaggression occurred when in the

sensitivity training, we were told to be ‘color brave’ which was a play on being colorblind in

regards to race, and to see all people as the same. This was not met with good feedback, as

grouping all people together under one color spectrum was erasing culture and heritage. When

faced with the negative feedback the organization retracted its statement in the sensitivity

training, and made it clear to all employees that the intention was not to overlook or nullify

people of color’s experiences or cultures, but rather to bring us all together as one company to

overcome biases and treat every person that we encountered with the respect that they deserved.
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References

Brewster, Joe, et al. “'A Conversation with Latinos on Race'.” The New York Times, The

New York Times, 29 Feb. 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/29/opinion/a-

conversation-with-latinos-on-race.html.

Daniels, Shanna, and LaDonna M. Thornton. “Race and Workplace Discrimination.”

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, vol. 39, no. 3, 2019,

pp. 319–335., https://doi.org/10.1108/edi-06-2018-0105.

Nier, Jason A., and Samuel L. Gaertner. “The Challenge of Detecting Contemporary Forms

of Discrimination.” Journal of Social Issues, vol. 68, no. 2, 2 Nov. 2012, pp. 207–

220., https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.2012.01745.x.

Sue, Derald Wing, et al. “Racial Microaggressions in Everyday Life: Implications for

Clinical Practice.” American Psychologist, vol. 62, no. 4, 2007, pp. 271–286.,

https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.62.4.271.