Psychology Module 3 #2

Make an initial post (100 word minimum)  to EACH of the four discussion topics within the first two weeks of the beginning of the course.

You are required to make at least three reflective posts (100 word minimum) to the comments of other students.   

You must begin by first stating I believe your main (basic)point was.  You may then proceed to discuss your viewpoint and advance or clarify you contribution to the discussion topic.

To be honest, I cried throughout the entire video. I am a black woman and I have been discriminated many times throughout my life. I have been called the N-word and told to go back to Africa, beaten for having a darker hue than my Caucasian classmates and many other things that I will refrain from mentioning here. As a child growing up, I was crippled by the fear of being a female with brown skin. I always told myself that I have two strikes against me…i am not white and im a female. I remember praying to God to make me into a white man. A white man? Yes a white man because then I could be powerful, get any job I wanted, become rich and didn’t have to face discrimination (that was a conceived thought in my head at that time) . I would wake up angry when I looked in the mirror and still saw the brown reflection in the mirror staring back at me. But, as I grew older, I accepted the fact that God made me like this for a reason. I accepted the fact that I am beautiful just the way I am. I refuse to let those ignorant people prevent me from enjoying my life and seeing the beauty in my diversity. 

However, I must commend Ms. Jane, the teacher, for conducting that experiment with her third graders and then taking it to that workshop with the adults. She was very brave for doing so and I wish that instructors and work administrators would do this experiment in their environment. 

As I watched the initial experiment amongst the third grade students, I realized that discrimination is a learned behavior. People are not born to be racist. People are taught to be racist. 

It was shocking to find out that when the teacher made the brown-eyed people the superior group over the blue-eyed group on the second day of the experiment, the blue-eyed group did worse on their class assignment than the day before when they had the upper hand and treated better. That confirms that if a person is told that they are stupid or no good or treated inferior by an authoritative person whom they respect, it can do a lot of damage to their self esteem. Words have a lot of power. This is why guardians, teachers, and parents have to be careful of the words that they speak to their children. If you call your child stupid, your child will begin to believe that they are and act out. However, if a child is praised and told that they are intelligent, the child has a higher chance of believing that they are. The concept applies to adults, as well. 

I still don’t understand the concept of why certain groups of people have to make themselves superior than other groups. When a person decides to hate another person based on their looks, accents, hair texture, facial features, skin color, educational status, it shows that the person has some low self esteem issues and they lack love.

I believe that the world is a better place because of the diversity of cultures and people. I like to use the analogy of a beautiful flower garden to describe the various ethnic groups and culture in the world. A garden with just red roses is beautiful, but imagine the magnificent beauty if the garden had yellow daffodils, white daisies, red roses, pink carnations, blue hydrangeas, etc. That garden would be exquisite! 

Diversity is beautiful. Discrimination is ugly.