Psychology 101 teaches stereotypes

“What’s going on here? Am I taking Psychology 101 or How to Be a Racist 101?” These thoughts race through my head as I engage in my psychology lab module on the computer on the fourth floor of the Hibbs building. We are studying psychological disorders like anxiety, schizophrenia, alcoholism and multiple personalities.

Today’s lesson involves a program called “Mystery Client,” although as the reader will soon find out, the client was not so mysterious.

The computer allowed us to play the role of a clinical psychiatrist and diagnose various patients with their condition after reviewing their personal history, feelings, thoughts, and of course, their ethnic background.

Virginia Commonwealth University prides itself on diversity. What university doesn’t? What university doesn’t show at least one black, one Asian and one young lady student on every pamphlet, brochure, and Web site it constructs?

Diversity is the buzzword of multicultural America – what many scholars have dubbed, “The Third Republic.”

After immigration restrictions from the 1924 Quota Act (which reduced immigration from “nondesirable” peoples like Italians, Greeks and Poles) were lifted in 1964, America saw a rush of immigrants swarm its shores just like in the beginning of the 20th century. This time however, Europe was doing better economically, and so many of the tired and hungry came from Asia and Latin America.

Soon the demographics of the United States changed as they did in the beginning of the 20th century (from Anglo to a mix of European ethnics). Now the population was not just made up of Caucasians (of European descent) and 10 percent black, Asians also made up a large proportion of the U.S. citizenry, and of course, a group we have now come to call Hispanics grew in extraordinary numbers.

Hispanics, it will be noted, can be of any racial background, having even 100 percent ancestry from Europe, such as the Spaniards of today, or people from Argentina who are of German, Irish or Italian descent.

However, commonly when Americans think “Hispanic,” they think of dark-complected, mestizos, who are of mixed blood, descendents from the Spanish conquistadors and from the indigenous American people who populated Central and South America, like the Aztecs and the Incas. Today, this is all irrelevant to governmental statistical analysts who sometimes even call any white person (regardless of their ethnicity) “Anglo,” when Anglo actually refers to the English, even ruling out those from the Emerald Isle.

All this is important for the reader to note, as Hispanics are members of the “protected classes” that includes Asians, blacks and Native Americans.

However, many European ethnicities are not considered such, and so it is fine and dandy to make prejudiced remarks toward Italians by calling them Mafiosi or saying that all Irish are drunks. Anytime I tell someone, I’m Italian-American, the first thing they ask is, “Is your family in the mafia?” Would they pose a similar question to a Colombian-American and ask them if they deal cocaine in with a drug cartel? I think not.

And so, as I completed my assignment on the fourth floor of Hibbs I noticed that every time I checked the “patient’s” ethnicity it was always of European descent, such as Irish, German, Anglo or Italian.

A school-sponsored program is of course afraid to make any of the imaginary patients black or Hispanic in fear of retribution from angry students crying racism.

So as I read up on patient No. 1 and found out that he was a full-blooded Irishman, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that, according to the computer program, his father was a drunkard. And maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that the Italian individual was a blue-collar worker, (when in fact more than two-thirds are white-collared), in contrast to the Anglo patient who achieved a Ph.D. and attended an Ivy League school.

These statements, mind you, come from a lesson in Psychology 101, compliments of VCU, a school who tells the Web browser that we “focus on diversity” as the icon says on the university’s homepage.

Diversity does not just mean “we have the most black students out of any other college in Virginia.” But that is all I get from the way the university brags about its focus on diversity but then bashes the self-esteem of its Irish and Italian students.

These are myths, stereotypes, that the university is propagating and indoctrinating its students with. And this is in a freshman level psychology class. What a great way to begin educating the leaders of tomorrow.