Читать книгу Understanding Racism - Hephzibah Strmic-Pawl - Страница 36

Robert Merton’s typology, which was published around the same time as Allport’s book, is widely referenced for situating the complex relationship between prejudice and discrimination. Merton contends that there is not a direct causal relationship between prejudice and discrimination, in that prejudice always directly results in discrimination. Instead, he offers a typology to explain the multiple ways in which prejudice and discrimination can be related—and therefore the likelihood of when discrimination will occur. Merton proposes four types of prejudice–discrimination linkages: (1) unprejudiced nondiscriminators, (2) unprejudiced discriminators, (3) prejudiced nondiscriminators, and (4) prejudiced discriminators. Unprejudiced nondiscriminators, or all-weather liberals, believe in freedom and equality and seek out likeminded people; they are not ambivalent about social problems but often lack an awareness of them. Unprejudiced discriminators, or fair-weather liberals, tend to discriminate only if they feel it is necessary, particularly if it is in their self-interest. Fair-weather liberals often obey policies against discrimination because they prefer that their actions meet their unprejudiced views. Prejudiced nondiscriminators, or timid bigots, look upon many groups unfavorably and follow stereotypes, but they won’t discriminate if there is law or social pressure against doing so. The fourth type is prejudiced discriminators, or active bigots, who believe in the inferiority of others and their right to act on that prejudice.³³ Because this is a typology, many people don’t fall neatly into one of the four groups; nevertheless, the typology provides a useful guide to understand the varied relationship between prejudice and discrimination.