Lesson 8: Confronting Prejudice

Rationale
This lesson encourages students to share their personal experiences with prejudice to help them understand discrimination on many levels. In addition, students will have an opportunity to examine the different ways people respond to prejudice.

Materials
Chart paper and markers (optional)

Procedure
Before class begins, ask four volunteers to present the short skit outlined below:

Juan: "Hey guys, let's go play some basketball."
Brian: "Cool. I'll go get the ball and meet you at the court."
Ahmad: "Yeah, I'll come, too."
Brian: "You can't be on my team!"
Ahmad: "Why not?
Brian: "Cause you shoot like a wimp."
Steve: "Man, why are you saying stuff like that? He played on my team the other day and we won."
Brian: "It must have been a lucky day; he usually can't shoot at all."
Juan: "Hey guys, are we gonna play or not?"

• On the chalkboard or a piece of chart paper, draw four large squares. Label the squares Victim, Perpetrator, Bystander, and Challenger. Ask the students to consider the skit they just witnessed and identify the victim, the perpetrator, the bystander, and the challenger. Write the names of the characters in the squares.
• Ask the students to consider what each of the labels means and write a brief description under the heading.
• Divide the class into groups of four. Each group member should describe a time when she or he was a victim of prejudice, a perpetrator, a bystander, and a challenger.
• After all the students have shared their experiences, ask each group to create a skit that will further demonstrate unfairness and prejudice. If necessary, review the definition of prejudice found at the beginning of this resource guide. Suggest that students change the names of participants if the skit is based on a real event.
• After watching the demonstrations, ask the class to identify the victim, perpetrator, bystander, and challenger in each situation.
• Discuss the presentations, using some of these suggested questions: Were some of the experiences you shared difficult to talk about? Were most of you able to identify a time when you played all four of the roles? What conclusions can you draw from this? Is the victim always right? What factors can cause people to be perpetrators (such as peer pressure)? What are some factors people might consider when deciding whether to challenge prejudice or remain a bystander? If you are a bystander, what could you do besides keeping quiet? What are the possible costs of challenging prejudice (such as losing friends or being ostracized yourself)? What are some of the possible long-term effects of not challenging prejudice?

Extension Activities
• Ask students to refer to a time when they were bystanders and rewrite the ending, this time in the role of the challenger.
• Suggest that students create comic strips based on the skit provided in this lesson or choose a similar dramatization. One possible story line would depict the challenger as a superhero who saves the day.
• Read pre-selected passages from literature and ask students to identify the victims, perpetrators, bystanders, and challengers in each. Consider using some of these books about the Holocaust: Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl, Night by Elie Wiesel, and I Have Lived a Thousand Years: Growing Up in the Holocaust, by Livia Bitton-Jackson.

Parts of this lesson were adapted with permission from A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE ® Institute Anti-Bias Study Guide. New York, New York: Anti-Defamation League, 1998.

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