This book seems pretty intense upon first impression. One thing I noticed is that the author definitely did their research. Obviously they have a PH.d as shown by the cover page, but all of the reading material seemed familiar to me. The definitions came straight from sociology class, the stories from English, the group interactions from social psychology. What I began thinking of from this realization was that education, at least the upper education I received, has gone a long way of informing newer generations about the inequalities Tatum speaks of. The problem I see in this though is that by the time I started to learn about it it was already to late. I do not see myself as a racist, or even as holding many prejudices, but some things which Tatum wrote about definitely gets you thinking. For instance the part where young children drew Native Americans, or “Indians.” The kids didn’t even recognize the real term, but when prompted to draw an Indian, feathers and tomahawks were the first thing in mind. The source of this stereotypical image… Peter Pan. Institutionalized discrimination is all over, and a few college courses can never help someone unlearn that. All it can do is enlighten the person, and hope that they attempt to work against it. Tatum mentioned some social psychology terms which I recently learned about. One of the things about racism and prejudice though, is that self monitoring, or focusing on TRYING to not be racist is much harder than it seems. It takes conscious thought, time, and restraint. So I wanted to ask, is there any way to lower the amount of institutionalized discrimination in modern media. Do shows like Dora the Explorer, Sesame Street, or Ni Hao Kai Lan aid in minimizing racial differences or do they contain racial undertones as well? I also wanted to post a link that was given in my Social Psychology class that goes pretty well with this chapter. Tatum wrote that many people say they don’t have a prejudice bone in there body… and she suggests they take another look. This link is for if your interested in looking again. It is an Implicit Association Test. It tests to see if you have any implicit beliefs (that you may not even be aware of) about race, sexuality, weight, etc… Check it out if you want to.
https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/
