In the opening activity to Race & Ethnicity you were shown slides of 15 people and had to determine both their Race and Occupation. Many if not all students were unable to correctly identify 25% of the slides. What does this activity tell a person about how they perceive people of a different race or ethnicity?
10 comments:
It is ovbious that not everyone thinks alike. If all people interpreted things exactly the same way then the world would be a very boring place I feel. There would be one opinion for everything. This activity clearly demonstrated that everyone percieves people differently. This could be for many reasons. How someone is raised and what they grow up around are probably the biggest factors as to how someone precieves something. That also comes back to the whole idea of how people think differently but then again you think the way you do because of people you are around etc. This acitivy clearly showed that even the 25 people or so in our class, all think so differently that we were not even able to get more then 10 out of the 30 questions correct. It really displayed how our world effects the way we think based on how someone looks and appears.
It depended on the persons piont of view. For example when they see a certain kind of person, they expect them to be a certain ethnicity and race. Like blue eyes and blonde hair would be automatically a white person,and someone with dark hair would automatically be european. This just shows that they are so used to being told that this certain person has these characteristics and they cant be another ethnicity. When I saw the irish boy with the red and white scarf on his head I thought he was some middle eastern guy but then found out he was really an Irish american person. Its just the way we're used to seeing people, we're not trying to stereotype or be racist, its just the way society is formed.
This activity really showed how differently people perceive someone. Due to the fact that most if not all couldn't even get 25% slides correct it goes to show that it is extremely difficult if not impossible to determine someones race and/or occupation just by their physical features. Everyone perceives things differently and by looking at the basic physical features (skin color, hair color, eye color, etc) many think they know what race or ethnicity they are, but this activity will surely prove them wrong. Just seeing blonde hair many think that they are definitely white, or tan skin is Hispanic, but every race has a variety of different hair colors, skin colors, etc.
i think that people go on what they know or feel they know, for example if someone thinks the name jose they might think ok puerto rican or spanish or mexican but that isnt always the case. i think people can be decieveing on the way they look and that the saying you can always judge a book by its cover applies to the activity. in a show i was watching the people were shown videos of couples and the volenteers said what they thought of them, one said the man was white and he had an erring and tattoos, he also said he looked like a high school drop out. turns out the man replied to him saying "well as a clinical psychologist i could see that what you are saying is a grat assumption." right there proves that i think we are all a little stereotypical when it comes to people and that maybe we should be more open mindend to the fact that what we think might not always be the case.
I really enjoyed this activity because it goes to show that everyone thinks differently, while doing the same thing; judging. Judging is not always a bad thing. For example when some people saw the picture of a serial killer, we assumed that they were a teacher or a lawyer based on the smile on their face or the casual way they were dressed. This activity shows us that people aren't always what you expect and you can't assume that you know anything about a person just by how they look. You won't ever be able to understand who a person truly is unless you get to know them personally and understand their emotions and their background. I think most people know that but this activity enforced it into our minds.
I think that this activity tells that a person that they may be prejudice of people of other races. I think this because people very often incorrectly assigned a race to a person based on things such as their facial features and their skin color. Also, people assigned incorrect occupations to these individuals also because of how they look. In conclusion, I believe that this activity tells us that we are so used to assigning certain races and ethnicities specific traits that we very often do it incorrectly because of how people look. It shows we think we know what people are supposed to look like and what careers we think they have, just because of how they look.
I think this activity shows that everyone views people and thinks differently. I believe that people are to quick to judge others by there skin color, they way they dress, or they way they look; including myself. For example when i saw the guy with the red and white scarf, the first thing that came in my head was that he was middle eastern even though he had fair skin.
I also completely agree with Kayla that they way you precieve someone is how you are raised and what you grow up around.
I think that this activity played a key role in what we know aobut poeple, based on their fame and what they do. There are a lot billions of people who have different points of view on certain things such as what race and ethnicity you are. A lot of asumptions are made baed on the prior knowledge of what the person experienced before, like on TV or Internet.
I think that there were some things about this assignment that made getting a correct answer difficult. For some of the pictures white/black were acceptable answers but for others you had to say African-Canadian-Irish-German. Of course people aren't going to get correct answers when those are the answers. It would be like a test asking for an answer and the page number it can be found on. But I think that the jobs portion of it was pretty fair. Personally when I see someone dressed in a suit in a crowd of people dressed the same I think business or politics but in reality it doesn't have to be. We judge people based on how they look but it could really set us up to be let down. I don't think that this assignment showed how differently people perceive someone but shows how different our perceptions are from reality.
This activity shows that it is very difficult and inaccurate to make assumptions about an individual's ethnic background. However, it is impossible to refrain from making judgments and/or assumptions on other people based on their appearance. This activity shows us how wrong we can be. I agree with Mike Castagna, when I look at a person and how they dress, I feel I can discern to some degree if they are a nice person, who they associate with, or their income level, it may be the most accurate, or correct thing to do, but nevertheless I do it anyway
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