The Nature of Prejudice

Society, discrimination and moral exclusion

Cristian Tileagă

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781135037338
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Social Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This book offers a critical synthesis of social psychology's contribution to the study of contemporary racism, and proposes a critical reframing of our understanding of prejudice in European society today. Chapters place a special emphasis on the diversity and intensity of prejudices against Romani people in a liberal, progressive, decent, enlarged Europe. Chapters ask how we can reconcile the European creed of law, justice and freedom for all, with social and political practices that exclude and degrade Romani people.

This volume addresses the need for a deeper recognition of societal foundations of ideologies of moral exclusion, and calls for a closer and more thorough investigation of prejudices that stem from the societal transformation, diminution or denial of moral worth of human beings (and the various conditions and contexts that create and promote it). By opening new intellectual dialogues, the book reinvigorates a renewed social psychology of racism, and creates a broader foundation for the exploration of the various, active paradoxes at the heart of the social expression of prejudice in liberal democracies.

The Nature of Prejudice is essential reading for academics, researchers and postgraduate students interested in both the quantitative and qualitative study of discrimination, inequality and social exclusion.

1 From antipathy to indignity

A framework for critical analysis

DOI: 10.4324/9780203770696-2

‘Why examine prejudice – still?’ This is the question that a recent collection on the neuroscience of prejudice and intergroup relations poses to the educated reader (Derks et al., 2013). As one would expect, framing an answer to this question starts with defining what prejudice is. The definition offered by the editors reproduces the most dominant insight in the social psychology of racism and intergroup relations (Dixon and Levine, 2012), the idea of prejudice as ‘negative evaluation’: ‘prejudice denotes the tendency to evaluate or judge people negatively before we know them, merely because of their membership in a particular group or social category’ (Derks et al., 2013, p. 2). This definition of prejudice is accompanied by a description of two core characteristics of prejudice that make it a worthwhile object of analysis: its pervasiveness and its complexity. As the editors argue:

prejudice is pervasive in the sense that it is of all times, is present in all cultures, and is directed toward all kinds of different groups in society. Prejudice is complex in that it involves explanatory factors at intrapersonal (e.g. biological), interpersonal, intergroup, and cultural levels.

(Ibid.)

The pervasiveness and complexity of prejudice should not be dismissed out of hand. It is not my intention to do so. What I want to highlight is that a focus on the pervasiveness and complexity of prejudice does not tell us much about its particularity, and plural manifestations. The fact that prejudice is pervasive does not mean it takes the same form everywhere. The fact that prejudice can be described as a ‘fact of life’ (Dixon and Levine, 2012, p. 3), very much in line with Allport’s conception of prejudice, is arguably not enough to understand its societal anchorage, distinctiveness and uniqueness in certain societies and conditions. Prejudice is complex not only in the way it is explained but perhaps, more importantly, in the way that it is, in certain conditions, deeply embedded in the social organization of societies and connected to structural factors such as education, poverty, employment and criminal justice. Arguably, to write about prejudice in general terms does not offer a solid and satisfactory foundation for understanding its contingent and societal complexity. ¹ As Bar-Tal (2000) argues, ‘social psychology cannot escape from dealing with larger societal systems if it desires to be social in the broad meaning of the term and to be relevant to real problems that preoccupy people in their social life’ (p. 156, emphasis in original).

Other researchers, whilst taking seriously the complexity of prejudice, account for it in terms of ‘responses to specific social and historical circumstances’ (Duckitt, 2013, p. 29). Duckitt (2013) argues that ‘important changes in the historical context have begun to make different questions about prejudice, and different kinds of prejudice, salient for social scientists’ (p. 38). The upshot of this view is that prejudice is a ‘much more complex and multidimensional construct, affective in nature, and expressing basic human motives activated by particular social and intergroup conditions’ (ibid., p. 40). The appreciation of social and historical conditions of prejudice can be seen as a precursor to a broader appreciation of prejudice – not limited to antipathy and natural (cognitive) functioning – yet it still does not account fully for how to approach or address prejudices deeply embedded in the social organization of societies and connected to macro systems and structural factors.

Early social psychologies of prejudice concentrated on social issues, social problems, of specific societies (e.g. Myrdal, 1996 [1944]) (where, interestingly, but relevantly, prejudice was only one aspect of analysis). Although they contained the seeds of universal and generalizable lessons, these analyses were very much located in and spoke to specific socio-historical and cultural contexts, and treated prejudice not just as a matter of fact (of life) but as social problem. The ‘problems’ that Myrdal wrote about were concerning dilemmas, deeply anchored, deeply embedded, in socio-structural and historical factors of a particular society, the United States. In a similar vein, Pettigrew (2007) identifies advances in American black–white relations, but also structural barriers (employment, health, criminal justice, education, poverty) that further ‘serious racial disparities’. Pettigrew concludes that American black–white relations continue to pose a series of problems for contemporary American society. He also argues that social problems demand multi-level and multi-disciplinary analysis.

In this chapter I argue that, for certain types of contemporary prejudices (such as the ones against the Roma in Europe), a return to prejudice as a social and structural problem may be what is needed to revitalize a social psychology of racism steeped in cognitive, affective and motivational assumptions. In the next sections I make the case for the uniqueness and distinctiveness of anti-Roma prejudices as both a historical, or what Allport called ‘stubborn’ prejudices, and a contemporary social problem for European societies. Historical as well as contemporary manifestations of these prejudices show that democratic and liberal values are sometimes not enough to erode (a history of) intolerance.

A democratic and liberal ethos can actually cultivate social practices, institutions, societal systems that, routinely, exclude a certain type of people – those who are perceived as inadequate, failures, according to the motivational and moral schemes of liberal democracies. In certain conditions, the liberal, progressive ethos of liberal democracies can succumb to dogmatism, to a stance that awards freedom of choice, freedom of movement, etc., to some but refuses it to others. The diversity and intensity of prejudices against the Roma in a liberal, democratic Europe (a Europe ‘for all’) points to the failures, and inherent contradictions, of a liberal, progressive ethos. Moreover, a focus on the diversity and intensity of prejudices against the Roma can provide a renewed source for social psychological reflection on its conceptual apparatus, theories and empirical approaches, and a return to researching prejudices as an integral part of socio-structural, cultural and political arrangements.

Prejudice as a social problem

European states (and Roma themselves) are faced with the challenge of what some authors call European anti-Gypsyism (Nicolae, 2009) or Romaphobia (Ljujic et al., 2012). ² The criminalization of Roma in Italy (Costi, 2010), Roma killings in Hungary (Tábori, 2009), their frequent evictions or relocations in France, the erection of walls separating communities in Slovakia and the various calls for and cases of sterilization of Roma in some European countries are only a few examples of deliberate attempts to remove the Roma minority from the domain of moral acceptability. Descriptions used by ordinary people or declarations of public figures that Roma are the ‘scum of the earth’, or that they ‘are animals and behave like animals’ (Tileagă, 2014), add to an unflattering image of present-day Europe, where, with extraordinary regularity, the Roma are seen as expendable.

Ordinary people, politicians and decision-makers seem to agree that the Roma are unlike any other European minority group. For some, like George Schöpflin (Hungarian Member of the European Parliament), the Roma’s existence is ‘absolutely dysfunctional, in total opposition to the tradition of the majority’. The mayor of Cholet (western France), Gilles Bourdouleix, defended himself against accusations that he told a group of Roma that ‘maybe Hitler didn’t kill enough of them’, whereas the mayor of Nice (southern France), Christian Estrosi, called for all French mayors to follow his methods (24-hour surveillance of the Roma), and ‘not surrender’. The Roma, as a ‘problem group’, as a social problem, is a quite familiar, historical trope in European private and public discourse (for illustrations, see Fraser, 1992; Okely, 1983). Characteristics such as their inability to adapt to ‘civilized’ life, their transgression of moral and spatial boundaries and the failure of integration efforts are aspects of a widespread contemporary diagnosis that presents Roma as deviant and transgressors of moral/civilized boundaries of European societies.

European societies are engaged now, more than ever before, in a dialogue about the moral status that should be assigned to the Roma. There is wide agreement amongst national and European policy-makers that the Roma present a social problem that requires a ‘European’ (read ‘rational’ and ‘acceptable’) solution. Europeans seem to agree on the existence of a social problem, but they disagree on the moral nature of the ‘problem’ that Roma pose. This creates a tension between the European creed of law, justice, security and freedom for all, humanistic and progressive ideals and concrete (European) practices that exclude, debase, degrade a definite category of people – the Roma. ³ This dilemma or tension is ‘ordinarily invisible’ (Opotow, 2011), and one of the crucial aims of any social psychological analysis is to make its implications visible and understandable, and to spell out its significance. In his seminal study of racism in America, Myrdal (1996 [1944]) provided perhaps the most cogent example of the significance of moral dilemmas. Myrdal constructs his argument around the perceived tension between ‘the Creed of progress, liberty, equality, and humanitarianism’ (vol. I, p. 80) and the reality of segregation. It is this very tension that turns (at least in Myrdal’s eyes) a national problem (the ‘Negro problem’) into a moral problem. The ‘American dilemma’ of which Myrdal speaks in the title of his book is a moral dilemma, an attempt to reconcile the national conscience reflected in the American creed and the ‘reality’ (and practices) of oppression and unequal intergroup relations. Prejudice as a social problem and moral dilemma is not something you measure (in the way you can measure ‘attitudinal negativity’ using a questionnaire). It is a challenge; not psychological, but societal.

The continuum of attitudinal positions and practices towards the Roma covers a very diverse range of shades and nuances – tolerant, compassionate, paternalistic, conflictual, eliminationist and genocidal. Common perceptions of Roma’s parasitic existence and subhumanity (Petrova, 2003; Sibley, 1992, 1995) coexist with benevolent and paternalistic attitudes. These attitudes and practices span the political spectrum (Hockenos, 1993; Tileagă, 2005). In a recent interview about the treatment of Roma in France and Italy, Jacques Delors (former President of the European Commission) expressed the deep ambivalence of Europeans towards the Roma:

the way that the Roma are treated in France and Italy is no less scandalous. Of course, the Roma cannot go just anywhere but to conclude from that that it is acceptable to destroy the places where they live and force them to return to Romania or Bulgaria is scandalous.

(Delors, 2011)

So, according to Delors, it is immoral (but perhaps not racist) to displace or destroy Roma camps, but the fact remains – ‘the Roma cannot go just anywhere’. Delors’ position can perhaps be better described by what Norman (2004) calls the ‘ambiguity of solidarity’. In a study conducted in Sweden, Norman charts the different reactions to the establishment of a refugee camp in the town of Gruvbo. She shows how the various debates around the refugee camp triggered a wide range of responses – from ‘the greatest hostility to a tolerant indifference or a certain compassion’ (ibid., p. 211). The continuum of responses reflects a tension between the central precepts of Swedish legislation (equality, fairness and solidarity) and a social reality (and beliefs) that may not conform to such ideals. ⁴ Another example is offered by the recent Norwegian debate (triggered by the visible presence of Roma ‘beggars’) on whether to declare begging an illegal public practice. Whereas some towns and cities were prepared to introduce a zero-tolerance policy, the Norwegian town of Kristiansand voted in one of its recent council meetings to instal toilet and shower facilities for the town’s ‘beggars’. In France, in 2012, whilst talking about the Roma ‘problem’, the then Interior Minister Manuel Valls argued that his country ‘could not welcome all the wretched of the earth’. He also argued that France was undergoing a ‘crisis of authority’, and that (national) security was not a right- or left-wing issue, but ‘a value of the Republic’.

The issue of European extracommunitarian and intracommunitarian migration provides a more recent illustration of the tensions and ambiguities of solidarity. French anthropologist Fassin (2005) describes the inherent tension of French political programmes on immigration by recounting the fate of the former immigration centre of Sangatte, near Calais. Fassin uses the example of Sangatte to show how political decisions, and their practical, material and human consequences, contain tensions and seemingly contradictory repertoires: order and sympathy, repression and compassion. He notes how, before its closure, the centre was described as a ‘focal point for human rights grievances’ but also as a ‘potential menace to the public order’ (ibid., p. 364). The argument for its closure was based on the idea that the centre ‘was a magnet for illegal immigration, and … shameful for a modern democracy to allow such an institution to persist’...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Series
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface and acknowledgements
• Introduction: prejudice as an interpretive concept
• 1 From antipathy to indignity: a framework for critical analysis
• 2 Stereotypes, new racism and the changing nature of marginality in Europe
• 3 Personality and racism as predisposition
• 4 Social categorization and contexts of social identity
• 5 The discourse of prejudice: racism as discursive ideology
• 6 Beyond stereotypes: moral transgression and being ‘out of place’
• 7 Dehumanization and moral exclusion
• 8 Towards a critical social psychology of racism
• Appendix: transcription notations
• References
• Index