Racism and discrimination is a social topic that spans across the entire nation. There is really not a culture or person, who does not face discrimination. Racism and discrimination is a form of conflict theory. Conflict theory is said to be, “human behavior particularly in a social context is influenced by or results from conflicts between competing groups.” Conflict theory originated from Karl Marx in the 1800’s and he believed, “that conflicts arose between two main classes or groups of people…” Racism and discrimination is a form of conflict theory because these situations happen either between different ethnic groups or people with differing ideas. An example of this are the conflicts that occur between black people and white people. Many of the conflicts stem from the days when black people were enslaved by their white counterparts. The days when a white person could openly say and feel that they are better than a black person. How does this relate, is what someone might and the answer that can be given is this relates because that feeling that a white person is better than a black person is still continued to this day. Black people feel the need to compete with their white counterparts because they feel held back due to their skin color. They feel the chance they can have to be a success is being denied because they are a few shades darker than what society has deemed is the normal color that an individual should be. And it’s not only color that plays a role in this conflict. Differences in how the cultures speak, dress, or even forms of entertainment causes racism and discrimination.
Which leads to how symbol interactionism can be a form of racism and discrimination. Symbolic interactionism is said to be, “a way to explain social behavior in terms of how people interact with each other through symbols.” As aforementioned above, the way a black person speaks compared to a white person can be used as a symbol of intelligence levels. A white person is believed to speak “proper” English, while a black person is believed to speak in “broken” or improper English. They are believed to know all the latest slang terms and most are looked at as having a reading capability of less than the 12th grade. Which causes them to be looked down upon as not being educated. But racism and discrimination happens within the community as easy as it does outside the community. The black community discriminates against their own culture if they feel a black person is too intelligent. For some reason the black community associates intelligence and manners as a “white” thing, so anyone in the black community who has both are discriminated against and considered to be proper and not black. Which makes no sense because intelligence and manners are for everyone but in certain communities are not teaching their children those values so they associate them as being characteristics of another race and culture. This association leads to racism and discrimination within their own community and outside their community.