Making Gumbo

Archive for November, 2017

Thursday, November 16, 2017

American Bigotry: This time it’s personal

What happens to an individual’s social-psychology in the face of the failure and collapse of the institutional and organizational support for their superior sense of group position?  What happens, psychologically, when the removal of obvious forms of structural racism, sexism, heterosexism, means that what used to be taken for granted can’t be?

I am asking you to think about what happens psychologically when black and LatinX people, now less hindered, show high achievement in all kinds of domains (not just sports)?  What happens, psychologically, when standards of woman-beauty broaden to more realistically include women of color (Miss USA); hijab wearing Muslim women (cover of Vogue); curvy women TV weather reporters, (former) First Lady Michelle Obama?

Really, the question I am asking you to ponder is what happens when the superior sense of group position is shown to have been built on a house of cards?  Well, the answer is intergroup anxiety.

On these matters, here is my newest Psychology-Today essay: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/quiet-revolution/201711/american-bigotry-now-it-s-personal


posted by Rupert  |   12:59 PM  |   0 comments