Understanding Racism. Hephzibah Strmic-Pawl
to represent a racial group; in the example of “ghetto,” the word can be used without context to provoke negative images of Black communities. These racialized terms are intended to reference only one aspect assigned to a group, thereby distracting attention from any concrete reality or evidence that would serve to the contrary.14
Categorization is sometimes reduced to or mistaken as the same process as stereotyping. A stereotype is not a category but an idea that accompanies categorization and prevents differentiated thinking; a stereotype is “an exaggerated belief associated with a category,” and “its function is to justify (rationalize) our conduct in relation to that category.”15 Examples of stereotypes are that all Latinxs are foreigners or that all Asians do well in school. Stereotypes are useful for prejudiced people, as they assign whole sets of beliefs to a group that justify their thoughts and behaviors toward that group.
In-Groups and Out-Groups
A critical component of prejudice is the solidification of one’s in-group and the creation of out-groups. A group is “any cluster of people who can use the term ‘we’ with the same significance.”16 An in-group is the group of one’s primary membership and belonging, and an out-group consists of those who do not belong to the in-group. Membership in an in-group is based on the needs of the individuals in the group, and it is possible to have concentric in-groups, such as family, neighborhood, city, state, and nation. In this sense, belonging to a nation does not negate a simultaneous membership in one’s family. A particular type of in-group is a reference group, or the group that one “refers to” in guiding personal behavior and aspirations.
In the case of race and prejudice, in-groups and out-groups serve as organizing tools. It is assumed that all the individual members of a group have the characteristics of that group—for instance, beliefs that all Blacks are prone to violence or that all Jewish people are penny-pinching. Such beliefs about out-groups may be rooted in a “kernel of truth,” in that some individuals may have these traits, but prejudice is feelings of difference about a whole group, even when these feelings are imaginary.17 As Allport states, “there is probably not a single instance where every member of a group has all the characteristics ascribed to his group, nor is there a single characteristic that is typical of every single member of one group and of no other group.”18 Moreover, no person knows every member of a group, so “any negative judgment of these groups as a whole is, strictly speaking, an instance of thinking ill without sufficient warrant.”19 In other words, beliefs about individuals because of their group membership result in prejudice based on irrational bias rather than rational, logical thought.
A group can also assert itself as the primary group. Whites proclaim themselves as the dominant reference group for all races and thereby assume that people of color should aspire to White norms. When Whites perceive themselves to be threatened by people of color, the White in-group becomes heavily solidified, and Whites construct people of color as inferior. If the needs of Whites become strongly aggressive, their definition of themselves is formed in relation to the hatred of out-groups—that is, people of color.
Why Prejudice Exists and Persists
Allport examines two overarching explanations for the existence of prejudice. The structural view looks to social factors because prejudice is most often rooted in the needs and habits of groups. The psychological view looks to individual behavior and personal development. Allport strongly states that it is a “both/and” situation, wherein prejudice is a problem of the structure and of the individual.
Structural Explanations
Structural reasons for prejudice are related to group dynamics and interactions. When groups face social pressures, prejudice is more likely. Allport outlines nine general contexts when groups are more likely to develop prejudice: (1) Significant diversity among groups (physically or culturally) can lead to an emphasis on group difference, which can then lead to the formation of strong in-groups and therefore strong out-groups. Examples of physical prejudice are often connected to race or ethnicity, whereas cultural prejudice is frequently rooted in religious differences. (2) When vertical mobility is permitted, tension and strain often develop as some groups do much better than others. For example, when some are very wealthy and others are low-income with access to few resources, animosity grows. (3) When rapid social change is in progress, there can be conflict about the direction of society and disagreement over group rights, as was seen with the advance of industrialization and women’s rights in the labor force. (4) A demographic increase in the size of a minority group can lead to the majority group’s feeling threatened. This situation commonly occurs with immigration, such as Northern African immigrants in France or Mexican immigrants in the United States. (5) The existence of direct group competition can cultivate a group desire to do better than another group. For instance, animosity can grow when groups compete for entry-level jobs or housing in dense cities. (6) When exploitation is sustaining one group’s interests, there is an inducement to support prejudice against the exploited group. This situation often exists in capitalist societies, where wealthy barons seek to use and control low-income laborers; for example, U.S. railroad tycoons exploited prejudice against Irish and Chinese workers when they used them to build the railroad. (7) When a society’s customs are more favorable to bigotry and do not limit aggression, there is a cultural context for prejudice. This situation occurs when there is state-sanctioned prejudice, such as racial or religious segregation, or if the state and society do little to curb prejudice. (8) Places where neither assimilation nor cultural pluralism is welcomed leave few options for out-groups to fit in, as they are neither welcomed into the fold, nor are their differences permitted. (9) If there are traditional justifications for ethnocentrism, perhaps ones that originate in cultural or religious rituals, prejudice is likely to have a preexisting hold. For example, societies with a White supremacy framework usually develop because of Whites’ deliberate group move for this ethnocentric viewpoint to be a vital, embedded part of society’s culture. Sometimes religion is also involved because of the ways in which it is used as a rationale for one group to have power over another, as was seen with Hitler’s aggression against Judaism or as seen with hostile Islamic states. Religion, however, is more of a tool and not a determinant of prejudice. Each one of the nine structural contexts can singularly support a prejudiced society, or the contexts may act in concert with one another to cultivate a society where prejudice exists and persists.20
Psychological Explanations
Prejudice can also be a psychological trait and is often studied via questionnaires that inquire into individual beliefs. In fact, at one point, Allport notes:
Studies constitute a very strong argument for saying that prejudice is basically a trait of personality. When it takes root in a life it grows like a unit. The specific object of prejudice is more or less immaterial. What happens is that the whole inner life is affected; the hostility and fear are systematic.21
There are several psychological explanations for how an individual comes to be prejudiced, including acquiring prejudice through the adoption of one’s family or reference group, participating in processes of projection, and developing a prejudiced personality. These explanations are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but each has a different focus.
Individuals are often prejudiced because they have learned this prejudice from their family or other immediate reference group. Parents can foster an atmosphere of prejudice by emphasizing power and authority rather than trust and tolerance. Studies suggest that children as young as 2 and a half learn racial differences and labels before they quite understand them.22 At the first stage of prejudice development, a child learns how to generalize people into groups. Next, the child practices rejection of individuals based on group membership but may not understand this behavior. At the third stage, the child learns how to make prejudice sound rational and acceptable to society. At the last stage, around the age of 12, a child knows how to use language that sounds acceptable while practicing rejection in behavior. The irony of learning prejudice is that a young child often speaks in prejudicial