Race and ethnicity  (Page 4/22)

Prejudice and discrimination

Prejudice and discrimination are learned as part of the socialization process; our stereotypes are part of our culture and are omnipresent. Even our language is filled with prejudicial and discriminatory stereotypes concerning others.

Shortly after the end of WWII, James Michener wrote a novel entitled Tales of the South Pacific which was made into a Broadway musical and later a motion picture. There is a scene in the movie where a character sings a song about prejudice and discrimination which is titled “You’ve Got To Be Carefully Taught.” Part of the lyrics to that song are: “You’ve go to be taught, before it’s too late, Before you are six or seven or eight, To hate all the people your relatives hate. You’ve got to be carefully taught.” ^{The source for this line from South Pacific is my own memory.}

Prejudice is an attitude based on irrational attitudes and preconceived judgments (either favorable or unfavorable) toward a category of people. It is based on stereotypes concerning the essential qualities of a group different form our own. (See Thomas’s Theorem.) Discrimination is a behavior which includes such behaviors as: direct personal discrimination which includes slurs social slights threats and even murder; ethnophaulisms which are derogatory expressions jokes folk sayings or generalized negative remarks such as white men can’t jump, black people have rhythm, the Washington Redskins.

Robert Merton developed a Typology of Prejudice and Discrimination (Bigotry) in which he wrote that, when it comes to bigotry, there are four kinds of people. The All-weather Liberal is not prejudiced does not discriminate and tends to remain firm in her/his convictions over time. The Fair-weather Liberal, although not prejudiced, does engage in discriminatory behavior; perhaps because the sociocultural milieu demands it, perhaps because of fear or cowardice. Since prejudice is an attitude and discrimination is a behavior, the Fair-weather Liberal is dangerous, because in order to overcome the cognitive dissonance which exists due to the incompatibility of behavior and attitude, some change must take place, and this change is almost always in the direction of becoming deeply prejudiced, because our behavior changes our attitudes! According to Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance, an individual cannot hold two incompatible ideas in their mind at one time without suffering extreme psychic distress. In order to relieve such distress or dissonance, it is necessary for the individual to remove in some way the cause of the dissonance. This is sometimes accomplished by rationalizing the ideas so that they become compatible. The Fair-weather Liberal must attempt to make sense out of his/her behavior which is at odds with his/her attitude by rationalizing that behavior which eventually will result in the cognitive dissonance being relieved by making the attitude compatible with the behavior—in other words, the Fair-weather Liberal becomes an All-weather Bigot because he/she has accommodated the incompatibility between attitude and behavior by excusing the behavior and changing the attitude. The Fair-weather Bigot is prejudiced but does not discriminate, perhaps because it would be considered Socioculturally inappropriate or may be illegal, and the All-weather Bigot who is prejudiced, does discriminate, and probably supports or joins hate groups.