Ambiguous prejudice inflicts a torment of chronic uncertainty on its targets

Evidence

And that’s where Omar is now. In a place shared with many others like him, a place where you just don’t know how much power to attribute to contemporary prejudice. You know it’s out there, but that doesn’t mean that it has landed on you. And then you start thinking that maybe you have become paranoid. What is maddening is the not knowing. It’s like lying in your bed at night and hearing a mosquito buzzing in your ear. You swat at it in the dark, convinced that you’ve hit the tiny beast. But just when you believe it’s gone, the buzzing starts again. After a while you no longer know if the sound is real or if it’s just stuck in your memory. So you lie there, awake and blinking into the night, knowing that either way you’ve lost sleep. — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 812 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Disappointment shifted nativist targets to vaguer enemies — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 1626; Arbitrary interference inflicts extra harm through uncertainty and anxiety beyond mere restriction. — Philip Pettit, Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and…, 419; Prejudice targets are caught between heritage and dominant worldviews, destabilizing meaning. — Jeff Greenberg and Spee Kosloff, Terror Management Theory: Implications…, 73 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Not knowing whether prejudice caused a setback produces its own corrosive torment #corroborates (0.96) — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 812