Читать книгу Understanding Racism - Hephzibah Strmic-Pawl - Страница 24

Categorization is a human imperative because it makes daily activities more efficient and helpful for ordinary living. For example, categorizing types of cups can distinguish between a juice glass and a coffee mug, and such categorization can help one navigate a morning routine. A basic definition of a category is “an accessible cluster of associated ideas which as a whole has the property of guiding daily adjustments.”⁹ Thus, categorization is not necessarily negative or irrational, and there is valuable use in a “differentiated category,” which has allowance for variation and subdivision rather than an irrational overgeneralization.¹⁰

An important part of the categorization process, which is often then associated with prejudice, is how people come to see difference. “Difference” is often assigned by society rather than inherent, and there is a process of coming to see certain groups of people as distinguishable from one another. First, there needs to be some easily identifiable feature to which “difference” is attached. This marker of difference then becomes easily identifiable by prejudiced people. For example, in the case of race, skin color is marked as different. Yet skin color itself is not the reason for the prejudice but instead is the aid for determining the target of the prejudice.¹¹ Difference serves as a “condensing rod” for grouping people together and perpetually seeing them unfavorably.¹²

The use of particular terms and labels is also significant in the categorization process. Prejudiced labels are embedded with negative emotion, such as the difference between calling a teacher a “schoolteacher” versus the prejudiced label of “school marm,” which imagines teachers as single women who are too strict and proper.¹³ Labels also serve to create cohesion between a category and a symbol. This cohesion is clearly seen with the range of labels used to symbolize racial groups, particularly those often assigned to Black communities, such as “thugs” or “ghetto.” The cohesion between a category and a symbol can become so strong that the label can act independently 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.