ABSTRACT
Do you ever wonder why all the nasty isms just never seem to go away: classism, racism, sexism, heterosexism and so on? These are not new problems, and it isn’t that people have not been working on them for a long time. In the United States millions of dollars have been spent on anti-ism programs since the 1960s, and here we are-still talking about them. Sometimes we are led to believe that the problems are solved, and we don’t need those kinds of programs anymore. I am frequently amazed at how many people with whom I speak believe that racism and sexism are no longer issues of concern for them. Yet, through a review of the data, court cases, and a discussion of personal experiences one quickly learns that such is not the case. The isms are alive and well despite continuous concerted efforts to eliminate them.
