Unconscious Alienation Racism

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Unconscious Alienation Imagine yourself walking down a sidewalk in your neighborhood when the door of a mosque across the street opens and you see a group of Somali men, women and children walk out laughing and smiling. What is your first thought or action? Most Americans would avoid communicating with the Somali group and the typical scenario would have you continuing to walk by without you or anyone in the Somali group acknowledging or greeting each other at all. A survey done by the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire indicated that many Americans will admit conscious thoughts or images of poverty, Islam, or war when seeing a group of Somalis (Schaid & Grossman, 2007). While people will admit their first thoughts may be general images, people do not easily admit their unconscious thoughts that hold preconceptions and bias that are racist. Personal identification with an ethnic or cultural group does not result in alienation from society; the unconscious mind which drives social conformity drives the bias that causes alienation. Unconscious bias creates alienation because it holds deep racism and prejudice that hinders the progress of assimilation of cultural groups in American society. A research study entitled, “Somali Immigrant Settlement in Small Midwestern U.S. Communities: The Case of Barron, Wisconsin,” by Jessica Schaid and Zoltan Grossman examined Somalis in Barron, Wisconsin, known as the “Turkey Capital” because of the Jennie-O Turkey Factory located there (Schaid & Grossman, 2007). Schaid and Grossman reported that the movie Black Hawk Down and the suspicion of Muslims after 9/11 have created bias that has given impetus to tensions in the Barron community. The Somalis have stayed in tight groups to continue their cultural norms and as a host country, American society’s refusal to understand or adapt to accommodate the cultural norms of the Somali

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