Past Prejudice and Life Satisfaction

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that racism has long term effects, which can impact directly the life satisfaction of African-Americans; life satisfaction is an assessment of overall conditions of existence as derived from a comparison of an individual's aspirations to his or her actual achievements. The author identifies six main types of discrimination: 1) Historical/persistent prejudice, 2) social paranoia, 3) persistent prejudice pain, 4) discrimination denials, 5) historical fear, and 6) historical bias. This paper explains that, throughout history, the color of a person's skin and other physical characteristics provided a means for easy classification.

Table of Contents
Introduction
Prevalence
What is Prejudice?
Slavery
Racial Inequalities
Is It Genetic or a Learned Behavior?
Long-Term Effects of Prejudice
The O.J. Simpson Trial
The Burning of Black Churches
Six Types of Discrimination
Life Satisfaction
Adult Life Satisfaction - Terms and Concepts
African Americans and Life Satisfaction
Relationship between Black Identity Development and Life Satisfaction
Research Question

From the Paper:

"The American justice system prides itself for being color blind, yet more than half of the prison population is made up of black men or women, accounting for one million individuals in prison. African Americans make up only fourteen percent of all drug users in America, yet constitute thirty-five percent of all drug arrests, fifty-five percent of all drug convictions, and seventy-five percent of all drug admissions for drug offences. Statistically, more than eight out of every ten African Americans males will be arrested at some point in their lives. The pattern of racial bias in these statistics has been confirmed by the research of the US Commission on Civil Rights. Marable (2000) believes that racial stereotypes among African Americans as violent, aggressive, hostile, and short-tempered influence white judgments about crime. It is commonly believed that judges are inclined to give black and Latino defendants more severe judgments of guilt and lengthier prison sentences than whites who commit identical crimes."

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