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Some Thoughts On Prejudice

Posted by PATRICK EDABURN in At TMV, Politics, Society.
Jul 6th, 2009 | Comments

As I was driving home from a client meeting today, I was listening to KGO radio and the caller was discussing that, in his opinion, all white people were biased and prejudiced against minorities. Even the host of the show, a pretty hard core liberal, was taken aback at the statement. But the caller refused to yield, citing examples of alleged prejudice where pretty much anything a white person said was deemed biased.

Obviously this person is an aberration, indeed most of the calls who followed him (including many from minorities) said as much (and given that this is the Bay Area I doubt we had many rednecks calling in). However at the same time many of the callers did state that when people ‘make assumptions’ that it was bias or prejudice.

As it happened, while I was listening to the show, something happened to me that sparked the idea for this posting. I encountered the same annoyance that many drivers have had to deal with, the slow driver. I don’t mean just someone who is a little slow but the dreaded 40 in a 60 mph person. I couldn’t see the driver from behind but did make an assumption that the person fell into one of three categories.

The first category was that of the elderly driver. In this I am probably joined by most drivers around the country as it’s a pretty common assumption. It’s also, in my view, a reasonable one. This is not to say that all slow drivers are elderly or that all elderly people are slow drivers. Indeed I’ve known some senior citizens who were among the best drivers I’ve ever seen.

But given the issues of fading vision, slowing reflexes, etc it is not uncommon for a slow driver to be an older person and to assume that is not biased or prejudiced, just a stacking of the odds.

However it is in the other two options that I made assumptions that some might see as biased, and I thought I’d offer them for purposes of the discussion. The first of these options was that the driver could have been a Southeast Asian woman.

Now for those who do not live in a community with a large SE Asian population this certainly could seem to be a bit biased, but there are some cultural factors at work here. To begin with, there is a very traditional attitude in the SE Asian communities (which are very homogenous) with regard to the roles of men and women.

Women are supposed to stay in the home and be housewives. They aren’t really supposed to go out very much (other than to do traditional housewife kind of things) and so on. In addition there is a strong (and understandable) suspicion of government in the community.

As a result it is not uncommon for these women to be driving without licenses. They get a short bit of instruction from their husband and that’s about it. Consequently they often are very nervous and overly cautious in driving. Again this is not to say that ALL people in the community are that way, it’s a fairly small sub-culture that sticks to the very traditional roles. But when you have a large community like we do, it does produce a subset who you tend to encounter out on the road.

The second potentially biased option was that the driver was Hispanic. Again, I want to be clear that the overwhelming majority of the Hispanic community is very law abiding and I do not assume this about every Hispanic person I happen to see.

But there is a large migrant farm worker community in the valley and at least some of them are, to use the polite term, undocumented. Most of these people are good, hardworking family men and women, but they do live in fear of being stopped by the police (for the obvious reason that they lack documentation). So they always drive well below the speed limit to avoid any chance of being stopped for speeding.

Now, as I see it, none of my assumptions are biased or prejudiced. I don’t assume that ALL elderly people or SE Asian women or Hispanics are bad drivers. I don’t even assume that anything beyond a small minority are. But, given the statistics, a pretty significant majority of slow drivers fall into one of these categories.

So, what do you say folks ?

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efelice1

I would say that the slow driver is a very selfish person. He/she was either talking on the cell phone, trying to do something else while supposedly driving, like eating something or picking his/her nose!
Another assumption would be a dreamer who again selfishly did not confine dreqms to the inner lane but blocked traffic going at his/her dreaming speed.

Do these two examples qualify?

Dr J

I say:

1. If everything's racism, nothing's racism. The more liberally you hand out guilty verdicts, the more you trivialize the crime and cheapen the huge accomplishments we've made against genuine racism.

2. No one can get through a day without making a thousand assumptions. Driving requires plenty.

3. Life is too short for KGO.

kathykattenburg

Here is what I think, Patrick. First off, I don't think your assumptions, in the context you've described them, are biased or prejudiced at all. Actually, I think they are kind of the opposite of prejudiced in a way, because your reasons for assuming the slow-moving drivers were Hispanic or South Asian were coming from a sympathetic (and presumably reality-based) understanding of the particular cultural and political circumstances of the groups involved.(I'm ignoring the elderly driver example, because I think it's irrelevant to the particular kind of question about bias that you're asking).

What I'm trying to say is that your explanation for *why* you thought the driver of the slow-moving car might be Hispanic or South Asian has nothing per se to do with the immutability of their ethnicity; it has to do with the external circumstances of their lives. And what's interesting to me, also, is that in *both* instances, the circumstances have to do with fear -- fear on the part of the slow-moving driver, that is. They are fearful of getting in an accident or being stopped by the police, not because they are Hispanic or South Asian in and of itself, but because they live in a specific cultural community that frowns on women leaving their homes, or because they live in fear of being caught by government authorities because they are undocumented.

One reason I am struck by what you wrote is that I can identify, on a personal level, with the Hispanic drivers' fear of being stopped by the police. In my case, it's not because I am not a U.S. citizen. It's because when I had a car (which I don't anymore, because it was repossessed), I drove for many, many months without car insurance -- because my policy had been cancelled because I couldn't pay the premiums (I live in New Jersey, so you know how high they were). I certainly know how to drive, am very comfortable driving, and more than that, I really love to drive (I miss having a car!), so it wasn't about fearing any lack in my own skills. But for those months, whenever I went out in the car, I would be intensely, *intensely* aware of following the rules of the road *to the letter.* I came to a full stop at Stop signs (like, who does that?), drove the speed limit, always signaled, and became even more cautious whenever I saw a police car. And I saw them all the time, probably noticing them more than most people who weren't always driving scared.

So, even though this is about my personal financial situation and has nothing to do with being white, or Jewish, or middle-aged, or whatever, I really identified, and I think that it's very perceptive of you, Patrick, to be aware of the legitimate reasons some drivers might have to be driving slowly, even though it's hard not to get annoyed.

Don Quijote

The first of these options was that the driver could have been a Southeast Asian woman.

I would only make that assumption if the car was a late German sedan and the plates said NJ.

joeinhell

We are all racist and prejudiced or there would not be races. Simple fact.

casualobserver

In South Florida, where I winter, we have eliminated the guesswork you are having to go through in Northern California.

After the unqualified success of requiring all senior citizen drivers to pre-identify themselves by only driving white Cadillac sedans (exception is made for Jewish widows...they may purchase red ones), we have extended the pre-identification safety system on the roadways to now also require:

-young black and Hispanic men may only acquire Honda Civics (acquisition by theft is an allowed option given their challenged environment). So as not to mistakenly pre-identify any white Anglos who have not yet converted to the new system, we further require that upon acquisition, the young black or Hispanic male must immmediately convert to an after-market muffler system that makes the exhaust sound like a kazoo. This allows pre-identification for at least 2 city blocks away which immeasurably increases the safety of female senior citizens who may be carrying a purse nearby.

-single white women below 30 years of age may only drive Jettas or another Volkswagen product.

-young black men that succeed in South Florida's rap music industry are required to upgrade to Escalades with levels of window tinting that are unlawful for other drivers. However, since affluent white surburbanites are allowed to drive most any car of their choice, the rapsters must also immediately convert their tires to side profiles of 1 inch or less as well as installing wheel spinner hubcaps lest the occasional surburbanite be mistaken for this drug-assisted driver.

-we have no significant Asian/Southeast Asian residential population down here as they are generally allowed no further south than the Orlando area and for visits of two weeks or less.

-unfortunately, all systems are prone to the occasional failure. Previously, we had pre-identified all European drivers by using a license plate numbering system that identified the vehicle as a rental car. While it worked fine on the roadway system, unfortunately, it also pre-identified them to the community of young black and Hispanic men looking for money to acquire their Honda Civics with.

-our largest problem is fine-tuning the preidentification system for all the Latin American and/or Carribean immigrant drivers. At this point, these drivers cannot master the driver's licensing exam, so we do not yet have a good handle on how many of them there are as we cannot simply count up licenses issued with Opa Locka and little Haiti street addresses. However, an informal system is starting to emerge as a fairly reliable alternative.......it seems these drivers are incapable of any reasonable amount of pedal control.......therefore, either the 30 in the 65...or the 65 in the 30.......combined with 3 lane changes within each block traveled.....yields a 90% certainty the car is driven by an individual who emigrated from either of these areas.

You may be wondering how us rich, bigoted white guys deal with all this? Fortunately, the Army Corps of Engineers built us a wonderful waterway system and we just travel where we need to by boat.

ThurmanHart

It's all semantics, honestly. The difference between "prejudice" and "bias" is only in intensity. The difference between racism and stereotyping is fairly slight. Which is which is fairly subjective, and thus depends on which side of the judgment someone is on.

Bias is derived from French and means, roughly, "slanted." Generally speaking, it is having some general feeling towards or against a subject - whether it is person or food or what have you. No one - white, black, or otherwise - can get through life without having biases. One of the first things I teach students about social research is to be aware of their own biases. It's something that sneaks into everything we do - even how we define what we are doing.

Prejudice is derived from Latin and means "pre-judged." Like bias, it is a general feeling about something or someone, but it is usually taken to mean a specifically negative attitude towards the subject. In general, a prejudice is thought of as not having any basis in fact - though the human mind can always twist evidence around and justify just about anything.

A stereotype is an expectation of behavior based on some class membership. They can be negative or positive. Racism is a specific example of stereotyping that contributes negative behaviors to inherent group characteristics. Like biases, we could not function without stereotypes - we generally use them without even thinking. To the extent that groups exist in our minds, we create (or adopt) stereotypes to describe what sets them apart. Stereotypes, by the way, are not necessarily bad things. They can just as easily be positive.

I wouldn't say that your example of the slow driver is an example of prejudice. It seems more like an example of stereotyping. It may or may not rise to the level of racism - I honestly can't tell from this small example. If it is, then it's at the lower end of the scale. When I get stuck behind a slow driver, I just get irritated because they're slow - I don't think at all if they are Asian or Hispanic or what not. So, I would ask you this: Why consider the group characteristics of the driver at all?

Leonidas

Every single human being on this planet is prejudiced. I'ts just a fact. It's how we deal with our prejudice that is either commendable or deplorable.

That caller who called in was correct, but the way he dealt with his own prejudice was not commendable, and I doubt he acknowledged his own prejudice which his call made readily apparent for all to hear.

I'll give you an example of what I think is a good use of prejudice.

Today at the grocery store in the checkout line was a middle aged black couple. I am white and live in a small southern town, where race relations aren't horrible, but there is little intermingling outside the public schools and a few other places between whites and blacks. Well because they were black, I struck up a friendly conversation the type you might strike up with anyone, making a point to smile and not act any differently than if I was talking to a white person. They were a very nice and friendly couple and we seemed to hit it off well during the brief conversation. They checked out before I did, but when going to my car they were pulling out and passing me, so I waved a friendly greeting once more and wished them a nice day.

Had they been white, I likely would not have done this, but because they were black I did. Why? because I wanted to do a small part to promote better race relations in my town and I wanted these folks to know I felt comfortable talking with them, I also wanted anyone else who saw us to know it to. So I certainly treated them with prejudice, but I can live with it in this type situation, where I was proud to be prejudiced.

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