Prejudice and Discrimination
Prejudice is any preconceived opinion or feeling about a group of people based on real or perceived ideas.
Discrimination is the treatment taken toward or against an individual of a certain group in consideration based solely on class or category.
Prejudice may be a feeling, thought, or even a predisposition towards others. Discrimination may be speech, mistreatment, illegal or legal, and behavioral (our actions). In the next section, you will explore how to build bridges between racial, ethnic, life style, cultural and other diverse groups of people, but to do that, you need to understand the difference in prejudice and discrimination. Prejudice is an attitude and discrimination is behavioral or an action.
Discrimination is an action (not just a feeling or thought) that typically has two forms, de jure and de facto discrimination. Even though discrimination is illegal, it still occurs in the United States. Some people, at times, are still denied service in restaurants, motels, or are refused employment. This discrimination as part of a policy is de jure discrimination.
Not all discrimination can be detected, much less punished. In the history of U.S. race relations, tremendous injustices have been meted out against minority group members by dominant group members. Discrimination that is hard to detect is usually de facto discrimination. For example, even if a company's policies state that they do not discriminate, if the boss rarely or never hires minorities, then discrimination is likely occurring.
De Jure Discrimination is legalized discrimination which is typically built into the social structure.
De Facto Discrimination is the actual experience of members of society with discrimination.
Sociologist Robert Merton studied prejudice and discrimination. He was interested in how people practice them and identified four types of people in society:
- unprejudiced nondiscriminators
- unprejudiced discriminators
- prejudiced nondiscriminators
- prejudiced discriminators
Merton's Prejudice and Discrimination Types
Figure 3: Race and Ethnicity Continuum
| Prejudiced Attitude? | Discriminatory Behavior? | |
| unprejudiced nondiscriminators | No | No |
| unprejudiced discriminators | No | Yes |
| prejudiced nondiscriminators | Yes | No |
| prejudiced discriminators | Yes | Yes |
Unprejudiced nondiscriminators are not personally prejudiced and do not discriminate against others.
For example, two people may be best friends although they are of different races.
Unprejudiced discriminators may have no personal prejudice but still engage in discriminatory behavior because of peer group pressure or economic, political, or social interests.
For example, a black woman might not personally feel prejudice against white people, but is scared of what her family will say so she refuses to date white men who ask her out.
Prejudiced nondiscriminators hold personal prejudices but do not discriminate due to peer pressure, legal demands, or a desire for profits.
For example, a boss with prejudiced beliefs may hire an African-American because he is scared of public opinion if his company is not racially diverse.
Prejudiced discriminators hold personal prejudices and actively discriminate against others.
For example, an umpire who is personally prejudiced against Hispanics may intentionally call a play incorrectly based on that prejudice.
One important and widespread ideology that reinforces prejudice is racism. When racism prevails in a society, members of minority (subordinate) groups generally experience prejudice, discrimination, and exploitation.
Racism is the belief that one race is supreme and all others are innately inferior.
