Session One:

Breaking the Silence

---

Experiences, perceptions, and beliefs.

This is the "ice breaker" session structured to introduce the participants to one another and open the discussions. The objective of this session is to help group members examine their own perceptions, attitudes, and experiences in light of those of others. For this discussion to work, everyone in a group must help the group moderator maintain a safe, comfortable, and respectful environment for personal sharing.

An understanding of and commitment to the study circle process as an open, thoughtful, focused discussion is essential for this session. The essence of the process is thoughtful listening to others to understand their points of view and a willingness to re-examine one's own attitudes.

Note: In order to allow more time for individual sharing and careful listening, you may want to divide into smaller groups of five people or less. Throughout the session, it is essential that everyone get a chance to speak, interact and participate.

Part One:

Introductions: Have participants pair off with someone they do not know and take one minute telling each other about themselves. Each should say 1) who you are, 2) describe your ethnicity and what it means to you, and 3) mention one thing about yourself that people should know. Have the listener take notes and then go around in a circle and have each participants introduce their partners. (10 minutes)

Ground Rules: Have the group create a list of discussion ground rules for discussing race relations and prejudice. Post these on the wall at the beginning of each discussion. You may suggest a few based on the "Role of the Participants" section in this manual. You may also want to suggest confidentiality and that each person should commit to attending all three sessions. (10 minutes)

After listing the rules, discuss the difference between debate and dialogue by reading a few of the dialogue descriptions from the blue handout.

Expectations: Discuss what you expect to gain from the discussions. Post these expectations on the wall. (10 minutes)

Part Two:

Name shield exercise: The name shield is a symbolic chart representing an individual's life history, ethnic ancestry and values. Have each participant take a few minutes to draw a name shield and then discuss it with the group (demonstrate with your own name shield prepared in advance. (30 minutes)

Questions:

1. What insights did you get from this exercise? What do we have in common? Different? Ask if discussing our differences helps or hurts race relations?

Analysis: Name shield rely on 1) disclosure as a way of building empathy and 2) active listening. Both of these are important in reducing prejudice. Differences are inevitable. Lead the group to discussing the importance of learning skills to negotiate our differences rather than bury them.

2. Why do many Americans feel uncomfortable talking about racism and ethnic relations? Are you uncomfortable talking about this subject? Why?

3. How do we acquire prejudices? What do we need to do to unlearn them.

Analysis: At an appropriate point you may ask if prejudices are based on negative experiences and negative information (from relatives, friends, media etc.). Suggest that to unlearn prejudices we need new positive experiences and new positive information.

Part Three:

Experiences: Each participant discusses their first experience with prejudice. This may be on any basis--ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, etc.--and it may be as victim, instigator, or witness. Each person should tell their story and consider the following: How did you feel about this situation? How did you respond to this situation? (30 minutes)

Now, each participant is asked to discuss their last experience with prejudice. Each person should tell the story, and include the following: How did you feel about this situation? How did you respond to this situation? (30 minutes)

Follow-up Question: What did you learn from this exercise?

If time allows, you may ask how your racial attitudes differ from your parents.

Part Four:

Reflection on the Session: To make sure that we understand what happened during this first session, let's think back over the last two hours of discussion. First, what different activities did we do? When, in these two hours, did you find yourself reacting with concern? Feeling anxious? Hopeful or upbeat? Was there a moment that you sensed that this discussion has a real connection to your everyday lives? As we come to the end of this first session, has your thinking or viewpoint changed in any way? What would you say is your common ground? (10 minutes)

This session is designed to develop a common vocabulary to discuss ethnic relations.

Definitions: Have volunteers read aloud each definition on the handout.

A productive discussion begins with a clarification of terms. Below are some definitions of important terms that often come up in race-relations dialogues. Although the definitions apply to many ethnic and racial groups, for clarity we have chosen to express some definitions in black and white terms.
(100 minutes)

The study circle need not agree on the definitions. Instead they are encouraged to use the terms to clarify their own thinking and comments. During the discussion indicate whether you agree or disagree with the definition.

A negative or hostile attitude toward a person or group, formed without just grounds or sufficient knowledge -- impervious to evidence and contrary argument. Prejudice is an attitude. All ethnic groups possess some prejudices.

DISCRIMINATION:

Unequal treatment of people based on their membership in a group. In contrast to prejudice, discrimination is behavior. To discriminate is to treat a person, not on the basis of their intrinsic qualities, but on the basis of a prejudgment about a group. Discrimination can be either de jure (legal, as in segregation laws) or de facto (discrimination in fact, without legal sanction).

Questions:

1. To discriminate means to exclude people based on their membership in a group (ethnic, religious, etc.). Some minority groups (racial, ethnic and religious) have created separate traditions, organizations and institutions. What is the purpose of this "self-segregation"? Are all forms of discrimination socially harmful?

2. Is choosing to marry within your religion "discrimination"? Do the following cases both represent harmful discrimination:
A. A Native American decides to marry within her/his ethnic group to preserve their culture.
B. A white-supremacist wants to marry within her/his ethnic group to preserve the white race.

Analysis:
Suggest to the group that attitudes can change the meaning of behavior.
Is the white-supremacist's intent to preserve an endangered culture, or preserve a majority group's power?

3. After this discussion, write on a large piece of paper:

Non-prejudiced discriminator

Prejudiced non-discriminator

Ask the group to give examples of both.

Analysis: A non-prejudiced discriminator could be someone who makes choices based on ethnicity but not motivated by negative attitudes, e.g.,
1) one who dates within their religious group to preserve a minority religion or
2) institutionalize racism (refer the group that definition).

A prejudiced-nondiscriminator could be someone who has prejudices but does not act on them. Ask the group if we might say that we are all, to some degree, prejudiced non-discriminators? Normally we use the term "discrimination" in a negative sense. We are use the term in a value-neutral sense in this discussion to highlight how some choices based on race or ethnicity are not inherently harmful.

STEREOTYPE:

Usually negative images, beliefs or assumptions about a group of people without regard to their individual differences. Every stereotype contains a "grain of truth" that legitimizes it in the eyes of the person who holds it.

Questions:

1. Have participants give examples of stereotypes as you list them on a large sheet of paper. The more ridiculous, the better. Include at least one stereotype that you can deconstruct, i.e., explain the historical origins. Have the group discuss how they think some of the listed stereotypes started. Is their some "grain of truth" that validates the stereotype in the eyes of the beholder?

As you analyze stereotypes, you may want to mention the "attribution error" theory. There is a tendency for in-groups to attribute the negative behaviors of an out-group to internal flaws (they don't have a job because they are lazy). Within our in-group we are more likely to attribute negative behaviors to external circumstances (my son doesn't have a job because the economy is down). The group will notice that the listed stereotypes invariably link negative behaviors or internal character flaws--ignoring external circumstances.

2. What is the difference between a generalization (e.g., most cowboys like country music) and a negative stereotype (e.g. most young African-Americans are lazy). Are generalizations about ethnic groups always harmful? If not, when do generalizations become negative stereotypes?

Hypothetical: Bubba is going to Japan on a business trip. His friend Buster advises him that the Japanese consider it an insult if ones refuses to share a drink alcohol with them. Is Buster stereotyping?

After the group discusses this, volunteer the following definition:

Generalization--Definition: a general idea or judgement based on particular instances. Generalizations are assumptions about a group based or inferred from experience or perceptions. Generalizations are flexible and can be revised in light of new evidence.

Analysis: Generalizations are natural and human ways of organizing information. They are scripts that we pull from our memory banks to help make decisions about people. They are yardsticks for evaluating objects, people and events. They allow us to size up situations.

Generalizations are inevitable and frequently useful. But they always have the potential of becoming harmful stereotypes (a dangerous neighborhood can become "dangerous people").

Stereotype: a fixed, shared opinion of a group that allows for no individuality. The key difference between a generalization and a stereotype is that while generalizations describe behavior stereotypes predict the behavior of individuals in a group. Unlike generalizations, stereotypes are often not altered in the face of new and contrary evidence.

Analysis: Suggest to the group that if we all generalize, than we all have the potential to stereotype. Admitting that we generalize is the first step to countering stereotypes in ourselves.

3. Ask for some words or phrases that turn stereotypes into generalizations (some, many, a few, often, most).

4. Is there such a thing as a "positive" stereotype?

RACIAL MYTH:

Erroneous theories or stories, ostensibly based on fact, that serve to explain the conditions of a racial group. Racial myths employ grand stereotypes to diagnose inequality and rationalize unequal treatment. For example, the myth that taxes have skyrocketed because blacks are living luxuriously on welfare. Contrast this myth with the reality in Louisiana where welfare program costs amount to less than 2% of the entire state budget, and the average welfare payment to a family of three is $168 per month.

BIOLOGICAL OR "OLD FASHIONED" RACISM:

The belief that people of color are inferior to whites because of biological traits that produce inferior intellectual, emotional, and cultural qualities. This overt racism was prevalent in the past. "Old fashioned" racists believed that racial differences were rooted in genetic differences; that "inferior genes" produced crime, poverty and racial inequality. In their view, biological inferiority justified inferior social treatment for blacks--slavery, segregation and discrimination.

SYMBOLIC RACISM:

Some social scientists believe that "old-fashioned racism" has given way to "symbolic racism". Symbolic racism is anti-black prejudice expressed through code-words and symbolic issues rather than overtly bigoted language. This is "covert bigotry". This theory maintains that many whites retain deeply imbedded racist attitudes acquired in their youth. But because of social pressures, whites feel uncomfortable publicly expressing these underlying prejudices. Instead they profess to believe in equality while using code-words, such as "welfare underclass" to mean "blacks", as a way of venting their anti-black prejudices. The symbolic racism theory argues that public debates on crime and welfare issues can easily become polite ways to express racial resentment.

Questions:

1. Give some other examples of how code words might be used.

INSTITUTIONAL RACISM:

Those established laws, customs, and practices which systematically reflect and produce racial inequalities in American society, whether or not the individuals maintaining these practices have racist intentions. Institutional racism is discrimination without prejudice. Individuals can unintentionally discriminate by applying policies that perpetuate past inequalities.

For example some banks "redline"--refuse to make home loans in poor neighborhoods. Since most poor neighborhoods are black, redlining effectively denies loans to qualified blacks. While the bankers' attitude is unbiased, their behavior has the same effect as deliberate racism. For blacks, white behavior can be more damaging than white attitudes.

Questions:

1. Are college admissions tests a form of institutional racism? Can you give some examples of a policy or practice that unintentionally discriminates?

Combining the above concepts we can broadly define racism as: racial or cultural prejudices exercised against a racial group by individuals and institutions in a position of power, intentionally or unintentionally. Power distinguishes mere prejudice from racism. Prejudice (an attitude) combines with power (a behavior) to produce racism (a system). Prejudice becomes racism when it is practiced by the economically, socially, or politically powerful (businesses, government, political majorities).

Questions:

1. Prejudice + Power = Racism. What does this mean? Can minorities be prejudiced? Racist?

2. Of the different forms of racism which is most common today? Why?

Part Two:

Reflection on the session: To make sure that we understand what happened over this first session, let's think back over the last two hours of discussion. First, what different activities did we do? When, in these two hours, did you find yourself reacting with concern? Feeling anxious? Hopeful or upbeat? Was there a moment that you sensed that this discussion has a real connection to your everyday lives? As we come to the end of this first session, has your thinking or viewpoint changed in any way? What would you say is your common ground?

Sources

Anti-Defamation League of B'Nai B'rith. Facing Difference: Living Together on Campus. Videocassette. ND.

Bowser, Benjamin P. and Raymond Hunt eds. Impacts of Racism on White Americans. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1981. Some wording for the definitions is drawn from the Chapter "The Concept of Racism and its Changing Reality" by James M. Jones, p. 27-49.

Harvard University Department of Psychology. ABC's of Scapegoating. New York: Anti- Defamation League of the B'nai B'rith, 1948. Some wording for the definitions taken from the introduction.

Katz, Phyllis A. and Dalmas A. Taylor. Eliminating Racism: Profiles in Controversy. New York: Plenum Press, 1988. In particular see "Symbolic Racism" by David O. Sears, p. 53-81.

Schuman, Howard and Charlotte Steeh and Lawrence Bobo. Racial Attitudes in America; Trends and Interpretations. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985.

Smith, J. Owens. The Politics of Racial Inequality: A Systematic Comparative Macro-Analysis from the Colonial Period to 1970. New York: Greenwood Press, 1987.