Race and Ethnicity

Sociology Essay - Race & Ethnicity

This incident occurred a couple of years back, when I was still a young 10 year old. I was on a 3 week long holiday to visit my aunt living in Australia, Perth. It was then that I realised racism is on-going and can happen to anyone. I was playing at a playhouse when I met an Australian girl of my age. We befriended each other and played the whole afternoon.

It was time to go and the girl's mother came to pick her up. But when she saw that both of us have been spending time together, her face changed. I could not forget those judging eyes that pierced right through me. She grabbed the girl's hand and pulled her away; telling her softly that I'm Asian and that I am uncouth and she should not get so close to me. I was disappointed and just walked away.

According to symbolic interactionism, prejudice is a result of labelling and perception. Before the woman even got to know me, she already sees me as a person of uncouth character. She may have experienced or heard of unpleasant experiences regarding Chinese men. The result is her stereotypical thinking that all Asians are inferior. Labelling creates selective perception and blocks out rational thought.

These perceived differences and inaccurate assumptions can lead to the creation of untruths and myths. Some examples include: Old Chinese men are all rude and stubborn, Malays are all dumb, and Indians are violent and petty.

Most of the time, people perceive others as different because their skin colour differs from their own. However, judging a person just by their skin colour does not explain and definitely does not justify anything. It just goes to show that every individual is unique and special. The reason why race is real is because people subjectively see races as real categories of people. As people classify each other, they are pulled further apart, distancing each other based on their race. This prevents them from seeing the truth; that all of us are one race - the human race.

After the incident, I talked to my aunt about it and she started to share some of her stories about how her life was like when she first migrated to Australia. She told me that there is quite a big disparity between the opportunities for Australians and other racial groups. When she was working, opportunities for promotions were always lacking. As a result, she had difficultly moving up the corporate ladder despite receiving praise for her work and hardworking attitude. To make things worse, she was always be the first person to be questioned when there is an error.

We can use Functional Perspective to explain the reasons for prejudice and discrimination. Prejudice serves a purpose in creating in-group solidarity by creating scapegoats and common enemies. It gives the dominant group an excuse to take over positions and property from discriminated groups. In this case, her manager is creating