Race & Identity: How Morality Influences Our Decisions - Essay Example

Introduction

Ethnicity and race tend to affect one's identity since it termed as something natural and which defines someone's true self for decades and generations that have passed. Also, when persons share things in common such as speaking one language, having the same skin color, culture, or even religion. One has experienced many forms of discrimination because of the skin color such as being stopped regularly by the police because one assumes that one is a criminal.

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Morality

Morality refers to a particular race or ethnicity principles which make one differentiate between what is right or wrong (Stets & Fares 2019, p.14). Moral upbringings tend to have differed from one race to the other. Most races tend to teach their children moral values based on the fundamentals of respect, family, and also a strong religious background.

Attitude And Choices

Attitude bases on the way a person feels about a particular race or even ethnicity (Stets & Fares 2019, p.13). Attitudes tend to play a significant role in discrimination of the minority, for example, a white police officer may stop a black person since they tend to perceive that the black race is related to gang activities. The lives that the minority groups live today tend to live them with no choice but to separate one's self from other significant groups (Stets & Fares 2019, p.10). For example, schools tend to base on racism or segregation; therefore, the parents have no choice other than enrolling their children in district schools, which are more friendly and have no racial biases or any forms of prejudice.

Expectations

It refers to a belief that something might happen to a person, based on positive or negative aspects. For example, teachers tend to develop expectations that students from minority groups perform poorly concerning those who come from the majority group (Stets & Fares 2019, p.3). Also, persons from significant groups, have a higher expectation of getting good jobs and also succeed in life, unlike the minority groups who, mostly expected to indulge in gang-related activities.

Values

Many races and ethnicities tend to have varied cultural values, which tend to affect one's behaviour. For example, when a child is still young, the parents teach one on the cultural values, how one gets taught on drug abuse, and how to maintain a family. These doctrines tend to vary from one race to other since some use selling of drugs as a family business thus the children will have a different view when it comes to drug use, they will not view it as something terrible, but they will view it as something good and that it adds value (Stets & Fares 2019, p.12). Also, the values play a significant role in the decision making of an individual since when one gets brought up in a religious upbringing, one does not indulge in drug and abuse activities. It also aids in building up strong bonds between one and the culture itself. Thus, one tends to have a sense of belonging.

World View

In recent years there has been an increase in racial and ethnic discrimination since some persons tend to believe that they are more superior to others. These have brought about the rise in fear among the minority groups, and one tends to fear that one may get killed or even get discriminated against because of one's skin colour or even ethnicity (Stets & Fares 2019, p.13). Though many strategies and guidelines have been put in place to curb this issue, racism is still on the loose.

Life Chances

Most of the ethnic and racial minority groups tend to face many inequalities when it comes to life changes as compared to white persons. Most of the black persons are most likely to get arrested than whites (Stets & Fares 2019, p.10). Based on education, children from minority groups, even though they do not get many resources, are more likely to pass in their exams, unlike those who come from the other majority groups. Also, most of the white persons are at a higher chance of getting employed, unlike white persons.

Racism

It refers to the sincere belief that a particular race is better than the other. It results in increased discrimination of the minority group. Racism tends to bring about the rise of violence and also to kill the minority race. Racism tends to get subdivided into other forms, such as structural racism. Individual-level racism and also cultural racism.

Cultural Racism

It refers to a form of discrimination, which gets based on a society's beliefs and cultural norms. For example, a specific community may discriminate the other based on their beliefs.

Structural Racism

It refers to any form of discrimination in an organization (Grosfoguel 2016, p.10). It mostly refers t discrimination practices that occur at the workplace where workers get discriminated based on one's color.

Individual-Level Racism

It refers to a form of prejudice that occurs when two persons of different races interact (Grosfoguel 2016, p.12). For example, a manager can fire someone because of one's skin color rather than one's qualifications.

Conclusion

To conclude, it reflects to one's ability to deeply appreciate a culture's ideologies and norms without judging by making assumptions based on one's cultural one culture. Cultural relativism's goal is to ensure diversity gets achieved and that all cultures understand each other. It also brings about unity and equality since no culture is more superior than the other (Eshetu 2017, p.23).

References

Eshetu, Y 2017, "Understanding Cultural Relativism: A critical Appraisal of the Theory", International Journal of Multicultural and Multireligious Understanding, vol. 4, no. 6, p. 24. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321479510_Understanding_Cultural_Relativism_A_critical_Appraisal_of_the_Theory

Friberg, T 2017, "From ethnocentrism to policy-centrism", Ethnography and Education, vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 442-458. https://doi.org/10.1080/17457823.2017.1365254

Grosfoguel, R 2016, "What is Racism?", Journal of World-Systems Research, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 9-15. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5195/jwsr.2016.609

Stets, J & Fares, P 2019, "The effects of race/ethnicity and racial/ethnic identification on general trust", Social Science Research, vol. 80, pp. 1-14. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331191529_The_effects_of_raceethnicity_and_racialethnic_identification_on_general_trust