Racism
Racism is determined to be the belief in the advantage of one race over another that leads to prejudice and discrimination towards people based on their ethnicity and race. Racism also demonstrates a situation in society where a dominant racial group receives benefits from the oppression of others. This is considered to be an issue of oppression, where oppression is a system that maintains disadvantages and advantages related to memberships of a social group (Rutherford, 2017). Racism in Canada possesses a long history starting from African Canadians, Chinese Canadians, Japanese Canadians and South-Asian Canadians.
An example of disadvantaged oppression is of, Afro-Latina that refers to Latin Americans of the African ancestry. In today’s age, the Afro-Latin black people possess limited media appearance. The media have been criticised for overlooking the African, multiracial and indigenous populations. Moreover, anti-police prejudice is a major reason for the protests where whites and blacks have different views regarding the causes of fatal encounters. Due to some of the stereotypes, the Afro-Latina black women claims that Afro-Latina is revolutionary. On 26th November 2009, the Afro-Latina people from Garifuna heritage arrived at the Cathedral Metropolitana situated in Guatemala City for a church event. The primary reason for this event is to stop discrimination against Afro-Latina people who are not determined to be part of the Guatemala population.
Another example is of police stops, where the black people are usually stopped by police either on feet or in cars. It clearly states that racism continues to be highly racialised as the proof of racial profiling remains to accumulate. A black male among the age group of 25 or younger possesses 28% of chances to be stopped by police, whereas a white male possesses only a 12% chance of being stopped. Such type of discrimination occurs due to some stereotypes that lead to prejudice among black people.
Sexual orientation
Sexual orientation refers to a person’s sexual and emotional attraction to a person of a specific gender such as female or male. It is found to be one of the issues of privilege, where privilege refers to the unlearned advantages available to some of the people among the social groups. Usually, sexual orientation is classified into three categories they are, homosexual, bisexual and heterosexual. Homosexual is the individuals attracted to the person of their sex, whereas bisexual is the individuals attracted to the person of either sex. On the hand, heterosexual are the individuals attracted to the person of either sex (Dharma & Bauer, 2017). It involves the feeling of a person and a sense of identity-based on behaviour and appearance of a person.
An example of having unlearned advantages is of a straight female. who is considered to be real. According to sexological researchers, the straight female is more flexible as compared to men. It has been observed that the heterosexuality of females is as straightforward as male heterosexuality. Straight females possess more complex patterns of attraction and arousal. As per most of the sociological research straight females possess enormous ability to sort out their orientation by their own. Straight forward females are open minded that presents their feelings in front of others without any hesitation.
Another example is of adolescence where they consider themselves as heterosexual. The healthcare providers and paediatricians must be aware of the medical, social and psychological issues that are to be faced by young people. All these issues occur through stigmatisation rather than orientation. It has been noticed that sexual orientation is not a diagnosis and it is not the job of a paediatrician to create teen’s orientation. It is the responsibility of the practitioners to create an environment where that would allow the adolescent to discuss any question.
Importance of privilege and oppression while working and studying with different people
It becomes essential to acknowledge privilege and oppression while working and studying with different people because privilege develops an uneven playing field. While oppression creates negative actions against a person due to their status within a social group. While studying and working with different people, it is significant to acknowledge, accept and critique their privilege. A person must understand his or her privilege while working or studying with others who are different from them (Heuman, 2018). An individual’s privilege involves ability, language, and country of origin, socioeconomic status, religion, sexual orientation, gender and race.
Moreover, an individual could avoid being influenced
by oppression while working or studying with different people. Oppression
occurs in the form of three levels such as individual oppression, institutional
oppression and cultural oppression. All these levels must be acknowledged by an
individual at the time of working or studying with different people.
References
Dharma, C., & Bauer, G. R. (2017). Understanding sexual orientation and health in Canada: Who are we capturing and who are we missing using the Statistics Canada sexual orientation question?. Can J Public Health, 108(1), 21-26.
Heuman, A. N. (2018). Illuminating everyday performances of privilege and oppression. Communication Teacher, 32(1), 30-35.
Rutherford, S. (2017). “We Have Bigotry All Right—but No Alabamas”: Racism and Aboriginal Protest in Canada during the 1960s. American Indian Quarterly, 41(2), 158-179.
