Whats the point of Racism

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Whats the point of Racism?

• Discussion of the evolutionary explanation for
  racism in society today

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Prevalence in today's society!
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(No Transcript)
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Outline of Presentation

• Definition of Racism
• Historical Context
• Evolutionary Explanations
• Alternative Social Explanations
• Conclusion - Nature Vs Nurture?

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Do you feel threatened by difference?
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Why do we form groups and gangs?
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Why are we so loyal to our groups and those who
are members of it?
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Definition

• Racism means falsely attributing inherited
  characteristics of personality or behaviour to
  individuals of a particular appearance (Giddens,
  1993,p.255)
• Prejudice refers to opinions or attitudes held
  by members of one group about another, whilst
  discrimination refers to actual behaviour
  towards them.

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History

• 15th Century - Slave trade
• Colonialism
• 1909 - The National Association for the
  Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) founded
• Dr Martin Luther King led non-violent protests
• 1964 - Civil Rights Act passed by Congress
• So where does racism come from? Are we
  predisposed to it for survival reasons? Is it
  culturally/socially dependent?

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Evolutionary Explanation

• Categorisation - Our brain orders info.
  categorically. Helps us understand/interpret the
  world.
• Similar Gene theory - Desire to mix our genes
  with others that are known to be of good breed!
  Want genes to be fittest - more likely to survive.

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Evaluation of Evolutionary Theory

• Cross-cultural marriages - mixing our genes is a
  healthy option. Diversity fresh
  pools of genes?
• Multiple social identities
• Does Evolutionary Theory actually disprove
  racism?
• Is our social behaviour also influenced by our
  environment/society not just by our genes?

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Social Explanations

• Is in-group love and out-group hate mutually
  exclusive?
• Functional Theory of Inter-group Behaviour
• Social Identity Theory
• Social Evolutionary Theory
• Social Learning Theory

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Conclusions

• We can see that perhaps there is a predisposition
  to categorise people for cognitive efficiency,
  providing a evolutionary adaptive advantage.
• However the attitudes and behaviours that are
  associated with the categories are explained
  within social theory.
• We can never determine the unique influence of
  our evolutionary or social heritage because they
  can never be studied separately but rather one
  has to accept that they are too finely entwined.