Cutomer Name
Prejudice and Bigotry in the Matter of Interracial Relationships
Despite the fact that economic and social disparities between black and white Americans disappear gradually, situation in the sphere of inter-racial marriages is quite different. Even the United States today are the very segregated society in many respects. The most interesting indicator of segregation in American society is interracial marriages. At the end of the 17th century, slavery in some southern US states was replaced by indentured servitude (black worker was obliged to work on his master a certain amount of time, typically from 4 to 7 years, without receiving any cash payments, but getting food, housing, etc.), white began working closely with the black. This led to a rapprochement between the two, and in some cases - to cohabit.
The result was the first laws against racial mixing Anti-miscegenation laws, which forbade marriages, and in some cases, sexual relations between people of different races. Despite the fact that since the last century much has changed, the statistics indicate that the attitude of the people became more tolerant, and the popularity of mixed relationships and marriages began to grow, there are still tough opponents such links. Studies make many assumptions about how the positive and the negative effects of the blending ratio, but there is no evidence that would prove the incorrectness Interracial marriages.
Thus, it is possible to assume that the stereotypical negative attitude towards this issue is typical of bigotry, of the week for serious reasons. However, it is understood that a prude, expressing his negative attitude toward mixed marriages can be a victim of prejudice that resulted from his personal negative experience, sometimes interfering sensibly assess the situation.
Prejudice, stereotyping, racism, sexism - the terms are often used to refer to the same phenomena. Let us try to understand them. For each of the above situations is characterized by a negative assessment of a group. That this is the essence of prejudices: in negative preconceptions about any group and of its individual members. (Although some definitions of prejudice also contain references to the positive bias, however, the term "prejudice" is usually used to refer to negative trends.
Prejudices make us biased to a person just because we perceive it as a representative of a group. Negative evaluation as a measure of prejudice may be associated with emotional associations, need to justify their own behavior or negative beliefs, which are called stereotypes. Thus, to think stereotypically means to generalize. Although a departure from the old-fashioned views partly reflects a genuine shift towards tolerance, on the other hand, cannot be ignored, and modern social norms disapprove of blind manifestations of intolerance.
As a result of these rules, less willing people start to show their prejudices, especially in front of bystanders. Instead, prejudiced views are often expressed in a veiled form, under the guise of statements that can be protected, based not on prejudice, but on something else, such as a personal experience.
In addition, People who have a strong focus on social dominance, especially inclined to hold on to negative stereotypes and prejudices against groups with lower status, perhaps because that such stereotypes and prejudices help to justify the existing social hierarchy. For example, the Americans with strong orientation to social dominance more prejudiced against blacks and Arabs, often condemned marriages between members of different races and deny the rights of gays and lesbians, as well as more supportive of government policy, by which the United States can dominate other nations.
Thus, the often-negative attitude towards interracial marriage relationship is the result of bigotry under the influence of stereotypes and negative personal experience. At the same time, a person may do so unconsciously, not realizing that some life circumstances influenced his or her perception of the issue and do not allow him or her to think rationally and logically. The great example can be the situation from the life of a white farmer, Joe Thompson from a small town in Texas, which took him 10 years ago. Typical rednecks Joe from Texas has a family, consisting of his wife and two daughters, 19 and 16 years old at the time. He does have a large enough is engaged in the farm and bringing up daughters with an understanding of these family values and the importance of labor. At that time, his eldest daughter to get acquainted with the black workers who lived and worked on a nearby farm and after some time, he proposed to her.
Joe was plunged into shock, but after a few months of scandals, he realized that his daughter is rested on her. Thinking that after their marriage scandals will stop and it will no longer need to continue to support his unemployed daughter, he gave his consent to the marriage. In addition, Joe gathered for his daughter a small dowry, gave the newlyweds a small amount of money for the initial capital and the family returned to the use of their second car. However, it took half a year, and a terrible tragedy occurred in the life of the eldest daughter of Joe.
One day, her husband is black just ran away from home, taking all money from the family budget and stole an old pickup truck, Joe. It later emerged that he owed a large sum of money to the farmer, with whom he worked because they had a passion for card games. He was unable to repay the debt, so when farmers began to threaten him, he just ran away and broke the heart of Joe's daughter.
After 8 years, the farm has expanded considerably, Joe, and yield increased, so that Joe opened his own small business selling environmentally friendly vegetables and fruits. He was a business partner Vinnie, man, younger than his 20 years, but he was well versed in business and helped build the right business strategy, which immediately brought both positive results and good profit. Winnie became acquainted with a black girl, and after a year of the relationship, he decided to enter into the marriage. Having learned about it and remember the terrible story of his daughter, Joe was extremely indignant and could not restrain himself. Serious conflict appeared between the partners, from which they was not able to go right.
As a result, their business contract was terminated, the general business suffered heavy losses, and the friendship ceased forever. Thus, due to the negative experience of experienced race relations, Joe became a bigot and the victim that provides his own prejudices and stereotypes of society. He could not cope with his negative experience and therefore lost much later in life.
On the one hand, this situation can be understood as the experiences left a serious mark on it. However, inability to look at the issue more widely, to get rid of stereotypes, led to negative results. Thus, the prejudices and the inability to analyze the situation and negative personal experiences lead to the fact that a person becomes a slave to stereotypes and cannot look at the situation differently. Thus, bigotry may be the result of a mistake or an unpleasant situation for the rest of life.
References
Adam R. Pearson, John F. Dovidio and Samuel L. Gaertner, “The Nature of Contemporary Prejudice: Insights from Aversive Racism”, Social and Personality Psychology Compass 3 (2009).
John F. Dovidio and Samuel L. Gaertner, “Aversive Racism and Selection Decisions: 1989 and 1999”, American Psychological Society, Vol. 11, No. 4, (2000).
Nour S. Kteily, Jim Sidanius, & Shana Levin, “Social dominance orientation: Cause or ‘mere effect’? Evidence for SDO as a causal predictor of prejudice and discrimination against ethnic and racial outgroups”, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 47, (2011): 208–214.
