Fear serves as another recurring justification for discrimination in U.S. history

Evidence

Rose (1956) argued that we shouldn’t assume that prejudice underlies discrimination because “patterns of intergroup relations (including mainly discrimination and segregation) are quite distinct from attitudes of prejudice in that each has a separate and distinct history, cause, and process of change” (p. 173). … Allport (1962) took issue with these and similar assertions that social structure was more important than individual prejudice. He argued that societal factors are “distal causal factors” in intergroup behavior, whereas individual personality is always the “proximal causal factor.” Allport suggested an important link between the two, however: conformity to group norms. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3320 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Historical discrimination plus current discourse turns group fear into avoidance behavior; Racism’s universality rests on instinctive fear of the unknown from species history. — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 781; White fear includes the view that racial equality ends white America — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black: How Race Still…, 241 (+11 more)

Broader Connections

• Discrimination has a separate history and cause from prejudiced attitudes. #complicates (0.75) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3320
• American egalitarian creeds clash with prejudice to produce chronic moral unease #complicates (0.72)