The Sociology of Racism

• Prejudice

A rigid and irrational generalization about a category of people
 
• Discrimination

Treating various categories of people unequally

Robert Merton said usually, but not always:

 

		Prejudice
		Yes	No
Discrimination	Yes	"All-round Bigot" (Prejudiced Discriminator	"Fair Weather Liberal" (Unprejudiced Discriminator)
	No	"Timid Bigot" (Prejudiced Non Discriminator)	"All Weather liberal" (Unprejudiced Non Discriminator)


 

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• Racial Myth

When one group systematically subordinates another group, they will generate a justification for their subordination that makes it a positive virtue.  This is most easily done by giving attributes to the oppressed group that "explain" the need to subordinate them.  This is a racial myth.
 

Six years before the Civil War broke out, a Southern pro-slavery advocate made the following statement.  What is the racial myth that he used to justify whites enslaving blacks?

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Sociology for the South (1854), by George Fitzhugh

"The Negro is but a grown up child, and must be governed as a child, not as a lunatic or criminal. The master occupies towards him the place of parent or guardian. We shall not dwell on this view, for no one will differ with us who thinks as we do of the negro's capacity... Secondly. The negro is improvident; will not lay up in summer for the wants of winter; will not accumulate in youth for the exigencies of age. He would become an insufferable burden to society. Society has the right to prevent this, and can only do so by subjecting him to domestic slavery. In the last place, the negro race is inferior to the white race, and living free in their midst, they would be far outstripped or outwitted in the chase of free competition. Gradual but certain extermination would be their fate... At the North he would freeze or starve."

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Did he succeed in making a "virtue" of  slavery?