Racism Impact

The Impact of Racism

The conflict of how typical stereotypes and racist jokes have been normalized emerges throughout the Novel Accountable, by Dashka Slater in which takes place March 2017 at Albany High School. It includes jokes or stereotypes which affect high students of color . Systemic Racism contributes to many incidents like at Albany High School by allowing normalizing racist jokes., Aadditionally implicit bias can have a very strong effect on how others may respond to racism.

Systemic racism has contributed to many incidents like at Albany High school by regularizing racist jokes . In Albany High School throughout the chapters it mentions how when Charles was around his friend group and he heard the racist jokes he would stand up however the rest of the friend group would tease him or ignore him. This leads to allowing such behavior to continue if not put an end to it, this is further demonstrated where a chapter mentions what a color person can expect from an all white school by describing racist jokes and stereotypes. With how the Novel is showing the regularizing of racist jokes and stereotypes it means that without putting an end to it, it allows for students to develop improper behaviors which further down the road could have a strong impact. Additionally not finding a solution to this would alternatively lead to same behavior spreading throughout school making it so that more students have a higher risk of experiencing racism more common which could then again lead to another bad outcome just like at Albany High School. Additionally, during the Novel it mentions how Charles had originally standed u when he had heard about the racist jokes however whenever he would his friends would tease him or just ignore him often and mention how it was fine to say. These types of conversation that Charles had most certainly impacted him into thinking that mentioning racist jokes or stereotypes is totally fine and he picks up this habit as occasionally throughout the novel he says some when talking with his closest friends that are people of color. Overall, this demonstrates how systemic racism can contribute to many incidents.

Implicit bias can have a very strong negative effect on how others may respond to racism by creating stereotypes based on people's identity without realising the harmful impact that it can have on others. During the first few chapters of the novel the narrator mention’s show on a couple occasions when Charles was hanging out with his friends of color he would typically say slurs or racist jokes towards them. This is demonstrating how throughout Charles he has developed that thinking that saying racist jokes and stereotypes is common without realising the impact that his jokes can have on others. Furthermore it describes how Implicit bias can affect how people react to racism as in this situation Charles seems to not realize what he is doing due to how the behavior has been regularizing it. Additionally during the novel there are many occasions where it mentions how a variety of students at Albany High School have been acting and this behavior makes them unaware of their own actions. With how the students are being unaware about their actions it leads to shaping the students at Albany High School to become very unaware of these certain behaviors. Without them realizing it now changes how they react to racism isn't anymore of how it's wrong but rather how now they don't see it due to how they haven't been aware of it. Overall it allows to demonstrate implicit bias has now affected how others may respond to racism nowadays.

In summary, systemic racism contributes to many incident’s just like at Albany High school by regularizing racist jokes and stereotypes, but also how implicit bias has a strong negative effect on how others may respond to racism by creating stereotypes without realising the impact that it can have.

Works Cited

Wordsworth, William. Lyrical Ballads. London: Oxford UP, 1967.