Читать книгу An Introduction to Intercultural Communication - Fred E. Jandt - Страница 95

Wherever it occurs, communication can play a role in either spreading prejudice and racism or stopping their spread. Prejudice and racism are commonly viewed as being rooted in a child’s early socialization and fostered in communication with other people who are prejudiced or racist (Adorno et al., 1950). Just overhearing racist comments has been shown to negatively affect a listener’s evaluation of the person being spoken about. Research studies have demonstrated this effect (Greenberg & Pyszczynski, 1985; Kirkland, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 1987). In the study conducted by Jeff Greenberg and Tom Pyszczynski (1985), groups of White college students observed a debate between a White student and an African-American student and were asked to evaluate the skill of the debaters. The debates were staged so that the African-American debater won half the time and lost half the time. Immediately after the debate and before the evaluations, a confederate made a derogatory ethnic slur against the African-American debater, criticized the African-American debater in a nonracist manner, or made no comment. Ethnic slurs cued prejudiced behavior. The study’s results showed that when the audience overheard the derogatory ethnic slur, the rating given the African-American debater who lost was significantly lower but not so when the African-American debater won. The researchers comment that evaluations of individual minority group members can be biased by overheard derogatory ethnic labels when the person’s behavior is less than perfect.

Out of realizations that speech can cue prejudiced behavior in others, some have attempted to restrict that type of speech, often referred to as hate speech. Hate speech includes threats or verbal slurs directed against specific groups or physical acts such as burning crosses or spray-painting swastikas on public or private property (Walker, 1994). Some cities and colleges in the United States have adopted policies attempting to ban hate speech. Strong arguments have been raised that such prohibitions are in violation of the First Amendment, the right to protection from government abridgment of freedom of expression other than libel and obscenity. Others counter that hate speech is less like political expression and more like an action, such as a slap in the face (see Haiman, 1994), and that such regulations are necessary to protect equality. Internationally, the trend since World War II has been to protect individuals and groups from expressions of hatred, hostility, discrimination, and violence. In fact, Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, India, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, and Sweden all have statutes or constitutional provisions prohibiting forms of hate speech. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, in Article 20(2), expressly provides that “any advocacy of national, racial, or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility, or violence shall be prohibited by law.” In 1992, when the U.S. Senate ratified this treaty, it stipulated that the United States would not be bound by this provision but would adhere to its own constitution.

In 1996, the U.S. Congress passed the Communications Decency Act, which made it a federal crime to put obscene and indecent words or images on the Internet. The concern was to protect children from pornographic material. The next year, the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated a key provision of the law. The Court ruled that in seeking to protect children, the law violated the rights of adults. In its annual report, the Simon Wiesenthal Center identified more than 500 hate websites. The first federal prosecution of an Internet hate crime occurred in 1996. A 19-year-old former student at the University of California, Irvine, sent an e-mail message signed “Asian hater” to about 60 Asian students, accusing Asians of being responsible for all crimes on campus and ordering the students to leave the campus or be killed by him. He was convicted in 1998 of interfering with students’ civil rights to attend a public university.

In 1997, Germany passed a law under which online providers can be prosecuted for offering a venue for content that is illegal in Germany, such as Nazi propaganda, if they do so knowingly and if it’s technically possible to prevent it. The First Amendment would not permit such a restriction in the United States. Because laws banning hate speech may not be constitutional in the United States, there are other, more positive approaches to dealing with prejudice and racism. Establishing cultural norms against such behaviors may be more effective.

While hate speech refers to blatant threats or verbal slurs, Microaggression refers to everyday slights and snubs, sometimes unintentional, which nevertheless inflict harm. Simple examples include “You’re Chinese, right?” “You’re really pretty for a dark-skinned girl,” and “How come you sound White?” Studies have now documented that seemingly minor slights negatively impact psychological well-being by increasing anxiety, diminishing self-esteem, and diminishing self-efficacy (G. Wong, Derthick, David, Saw, & Okazaki, 2016). Some critics of these concerns label this a part of Political correctness and a threat to free speech.

One research project demonstrated that hearing other people express strongly antiracist opinions influences both public and private expressions of racist opinions. In their study, Blanchard, Lilly, and Vaughn (1991) interviewed college students on the way to classes. In each interview, three people were involved: the White interviewer, a White confederate, and a naive White respondent. The interviewer asked the confederate and respondent questions about how their college should respond to anonymous racist notes. The confederate always answered first. The study compared how the respondents answered the questions when the confederate answered with the most antiracist statements to how they answered when the confederate answered with the least antiracist statements. The results showed that hearing the confederate express strongly antiracist opinions produced dramatically stronger antiracist opinions than hearing opinions more accepting of racism. In a second study, Blanchard and colleagues showed the same results when the respondents expressed their answers privately on paper. On the basis of this research, it can be argued that cultural norms can minimize the public expression of discriminatory or otherwise interracially insensitive behavior. Yum and Park (1990), however, argue that for well-established stereotypes to change, more frequent information and stronger content are needed. What each of us says about racial discrimination really does matter. Your vocal opinions affect what others think and say.