Cultural Diversity Discussion Questions

I'm going to post the discussion questions I had to answer today, and include my answers to them. Not having read the material I'm quoting from may make some things a bit unclear, but bear with me =)

Q 1. The Problem: Discrimination, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, a 1981 report, usefully outlines three levels of discrimination in the United States. Identify the three levels of discrimination and explain how discrimination functions structurally and systemically in American Society. Use examples from the C.P. Ellis interview with Studs Terkel, or other course readings to illustrate your points.

Three levels of Discrimination in the US

1. Individual Discrimination
2. Organizational Discrimination
3. Structural Discrimination


Individual Discrimination is manifested when an individual shows discriminatory behaviors towards a specific individual. Examples given in the essay include: Sexual harassment, Real Estate Agents showing people specific housing because of their race and people who move from a neighborhood due to someone ‘else’ moving in. All of these are one on one issues, and sometimes people don’t even realize they’re doing it.

Organizational Discrimination is when such discrimination is ‘often reinforced by the well-established rules, policies, and practices of organizations’. These can include Senority Rules where the most recently hired are the first to be laid off, when the jobs are traditionally held by one cultural subgroup, like white males, then they are the last to loose their jobs. Nepotism is another common form of Organizational Discrimination, and while there are many companies that make rules against this it is still very prevalent even in our highest reaches of Government, some would argue to our determent.

Structural Discrimination deals more with class issues, though racial sterotypes can be perpetuated through those very same class problems. When minorities live in the inner city they get fewer opportunities to succeed in life than someone living out in the mostly white suburbs, their education is less and their chances of not dying to violence is significantly less. Yet many of these people don’t have any other options, or haven’t been taught that they can do better, and they end up in the same situations as adults as they were raised in as children. Then ‘society’ will see them as failures and the cycle begins again, with only a few ever breaking out.

I believe Structural Discrimination is the most harmful for our society as a whole. Individuals can be taught and shown what they’re doing is wrong, either through education or lawsuits. Inner city kids, as my example above, are caught up in something that won’t be fixed by a lawsuit or one well meaning person, though those things can help. When people feel trapped in a situation that is not of their own doing, and feel helpless to change it, it won’t be changed, and that, I believe, is to the determent of everyone.