The word discrimination is not new to anyone, it is not only popular in class rooms or history text books, but in our daily life. Often we do
not understand what it implies. Discrimination is the act of disapproval or unfair treatment to others. It is based mainly on one’s physical
characteristics (color, weight, height, gender, etc.). Prejudice is directly related to discrimination, it is the attitudes (mostly negative) we
assume of those who differ us in some way. Prejudice is mainly visual, we judge before meeting someone and regard them with a stereotype
we had already set in our minds (Henslin 2011).
Sociologist suggest that we are not naturally born prejudice, instead we grow conditioned to it. We can learn from association, meaning we
can start not regarding a specific group of people in negative ways until we associate in a regular basis with those who disregard this groups
of people. Sociologist Kathleen Blee discovered that some new members of prejudice groups such as the KKK were not racist -prejudice
about a group’s race- before joining the group, instead they learned to develop this way of thinking after associating with the KKK. Other
studies by psychologist Eugene Hartley show how people who are prejudice against one group grow more likely to be prejudice against other
groups. Other studies suggests that a group can unknowingly be conditioned to be prejudice against themselves, this is called internalizing
dominant norms. A national survey suggested that African Americans males consider more attractive African American women with lighter
skin. This depicts how the the dominant society’s view -white is more beautiful- has made is way into African American’s society (Henslin
2011).
Prejudice has existed for a long time now, but the question is: why? There are different theories. Psychologist offer two of them: frustration
and scapegoats and authoritarian personality theories. The first one suggests that when faced with an economic, social or political problem
people tend to find someone to blame. We like to find the reason behind things and when it becomes complex we try to pin the blame to
someone else making them the “scapegoat”. In the German depression of the 1930s prejudice against Jews began because most of them
worked in banks, and of course in a depression the blame is to the banks, or better yet those who manage them (Henslin 2011). The second
psychological theory -authoritarian personality theory- is based on a research conducted by Theodor Adorno a psychologist that evidenced
that people who “pay deep respect to authority and are submissive to authority figures” are highly prejudice people (Henslin 2011: 223).
