Term Paper

Modern Social Problems

LaRoya Mitchell

Saint Leo University

PSY 427

03/21/2016

Running Head: MODERN SOCIAL PROBLEMS

Racism

The contemporary world is faced by a wide range of social problems. From a psychological point of view, racism entails a discriminatory behavior that is featured with a prejudicial attitude towards others on the basis of race and other institutional practices. The modern view of racism depicts that it has been made worse in the form of its impacts by subtle forms that involve a subconscious attitude that someone may be aware or unaware of, but still influences their behavior, thoughts, and attitudes. In the modern social, people are becoming conscious of racism through self-exploration and education, both of which have been enhanced by the increasing advancements in information technology that have made information accessibility and dissemination easier.

Racism could be categorized in different forms, including individual, cultural, as well as institutional racism. Individual racism involves individuals who may internalize each other’s perception and thus, behave accordingly in a discriminative manner (Brannigan, 2002). Cultural racism involves the exercise of dominance and superiority by a specific group against another or members of such other group. All these forms of racism lead to subjective behavior that could sometimes become reciprocal with each one of the parties involved depicting some form of it towards their counterparts (Brannigan, 2002). On the other hand, institutional racism is mainly practiced in organizations and comes in the form of discriminative organizational practices, including employment on the basis of physical health and discriminatory practices in the allocation of public resources.

Racism results to different ramifications that lead to a challenge in achieving social cohesion in the modern world. On one hand, racist attitudes and behaviors can be used to control and exercise power over other groups (Brannigan, 2002). Prolongation of racial superiority leads to a situation where the dominant group benefits at the disadvantage of the subdominant one. As a result, racism is one of the major contributors of an overly oppressive and inequality-dominated world.

References

Brannigan, G. (2002). Experiences in social psychology: active learning adventures. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.