Читать книгу Understanding Racism - Hephzibah Strmic-Pawl - Страница 27

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