"I'm Not Prejudiced, But. . ."
The Nature of Prejudice

Project Commitment, April 13, 1971
John M. Buchanan

If you read the same newspapers as I do, the same magazines and journals,
and watch the same newscasts on television, you are aware that it is today
seriously proposed that the American system has failed; that the idea of
representative democracy, and the institutions that have evolved out of that
concept, are morally corrupt. It is seriously proposed today that the American
system cannot deliver on its great, soul stirring promises, and that we are,
in fact, living in the last days of a dying nation.

That proposal is made by those on the extreme left who would hasten our
national death by way of pees revolution. It is made, equally ominously,
by those on the extreme right who would restrict and repress and call it law
and order. It is not made, but it is strongly supported, by those in the
middle ~ sometimes referred to as the Silent Majority - whose apathy and
unconcern leave the field wide open to the extremes of left and right, and
therebye contribute heavily to the demise of the Republic.

I don't buy it for a minute, and I interpret your being here this evening
to mean that you aren't buying it cither. We have come together for a great
purpose ~ not out of a naive assumption that everything is all right with our
country and our system - but out of a deep and abiding love for this nation,
and the ideals upon which it is founded, which includes a concern that it
change and that the wrongs of the past be righted - not in some future
generation, but today.

Time, I believe, is running out. I think what we have set out to do in
Project Commitment is extremely important, not only. because any common denom~
jnator of morality dictates it, but also because history may not afford many
more opportunities. Consider this little vignette that I read recently:

"Ten years from now or twenty years from now when blacks comprise from onc~

third to one-half of our major cities, a bill is coming due, Sooner or later

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the commonwealth is going to have to decide between the American idea or
Facism." 1

It's important what we do here. And my sense of the importance of Project
Commitment is fortified by two statements: one from the Old Testament: the
Prophet Amos, "I hate, I despise your Sousa and I take no delight in your
solem assemblics . » . But let justice roll down like waters, and rightcous~
ness like an everflowing stream." The other from Thomas Jefferson who said:
"I tremble for my country when I consider that God is just."

With that by way of introduction let me thank you sincerely for being
here. Let me urge you to be faithful in your attendance -— even though you
may be angercd by some of the things you will hear. Let me urge you to be
honest and open in the real meat of Pro ject Commitment - the discussion groups
that follow cach presentation.

I want to do several things this evening: I want to be honest with the
topic, namely, The Nature of Prejudice — and the statement "I'm not Pre judiced,
but..." I'd like, also, to set our effort here in the context of what has
happened in race relations in the last decade or so. I'd like, in addition
to give you something to think and talk about. And I'd like to do that in
less than thirty minutes.

As I begin I am painfully aware of the danger of over—simplification.

I shall try not to be superficial. I am also aware that I am white, and
middle class; that I have never known personally what it feels like to be the
victim of racial prejudice, or poverty. I am also aware that many of you
oxpected a "headliner" to key-note Project Commitment. That fact was brought
home to me in a telephone conversation with a very good friend, who observed
that I was the first speaker and thet it was his impression that we would get
someone good — like Jesse Jackson. Well, I'm not Jesse Jackson, nor would it
be productivo to pretend that I am.

Mon have devoted their lives to the study of prejudice. Anybody who

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wishes to investigate academically the nature of prejudice cannot overlook
two large and significant works: Gunnar Myrdal's "An American Dilemma”
published in tho late 40's: and more recently, Gordon Allport's "The Nature
of Prejudice’, In the middle of Allport's book he observes that there is
no master key that can unlock the secret of prejudice; but rather a ring of
keys, each one important in the process of understanding. There is an
abundance of academic definitions, each one with truth to offer. The edu-
cator might attribute prejudice to ignorance: the sociologist might say that
prejudice is the result of mores and th-% socictal change is tho remedy. ‘The
historian might trace it to certain piviotal evonts in the past and urge
paticnce. The psychologist might see prejudice as the expression of frus-
tration and aggression.

All are probably true to a degree. I think in our situation there are
two historic roots of racial prejudice, each of which must be honestly faced.
The first is the attitude toward the natives of this continent which pre—
vailed in carly years and which prevails today. That attitude allowed for
the American Indian to be pushed off his land, slaughtered indiscriminately,
stolen from, exploited and finally incarcerated in concentration camps which
we call rosorvations. That attitude, and it is a part of the heritage of
this nation, is that the White Man's right is always and under every circum
stance superior to the Red Man's. In simpler terminology it is that "tho
only good Indian is a dead Indian."

The sccond root is the historic fact of slavery. There is no way around
that particular fact. There is no way around the fact that just a little more
than a century ago, people were being brought to this country in chains,
parents torn from children, families disrupted, sold as chattel, treated as
property, used for the upbuilding of the White Man's economy, exploited in
every way possible. Those people were unlike any of the other groups of

people that came to this nation - in two ways: they came as slaves: and they

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were black, They are still with us. They constitute ten percent of our
population.

Any investigation of prejudice that fails to look squarely at those two
facts will flounder in the shoals of superficiality.

Remomber the ring of keys: add those two and allow me to suggest one
more. The social scientists isis that racial prejudice can be climinated
by rearranging the building blocks of our culture: change a law here; altor
a custom there. To that I would add the insight of religion.

The Judeo-Christian tradition, assumes that thore is something wrong at
the heart of man. We call it by different names: alictiation, estrangement,
egocontricity, sclfishness, sin. Whatever you want to call it, it gets
expressed in hostility toward other men. Because men are not what they were
ereated to be, they refuse to live as the family of man God intended. That
is to say, there is something about racial prejudice that is innate, inhorent
in all mon. That doesn't excuse or rationalize it: but I think it is by far
the most important ring on the koy of understanding.

Let's move from that, and without in any way softening our own prejudice,
let's acknowledge that every "in" group has an "out" group. A recent Time —
Harris Poll . revealed that a majority of Isracli's wouldn't want to live
beside an Arab, have their children go to school with one: and tho vast
majority wouldn't want their child to marry one. The late Kyle Haseldon, in
his excellent work "The Racial Problom in Christian Perspective" observes
that: "The white man is not prejudiced against the black man because he is
black, but rather because within al men there are compulsions which, when
they erupt in white America, find in the black ieaey,. ready, visible and
socially opproved victim. Every “in group" has aon "out group" upon which it
projects all that by its standards is abhorrent and in which, by contrast,
it sees its own glorification reflected." 3

So - let's acknowledge here that we are dealing with a profoundly

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complex problem: let's acknowledge that it exists on at least two levels -

the personal and the institutional: that intentionally or not, the institu-
tions of this culture were created by and are run by and operate to the
benefit of white people, Let's go a step further and call the problem "racism"
for that is what it is. ere defuse that word a little, however, by ack-
nowledging that wo are all involved in it; that to a degroe it may be uninten-

tional, but that, that disclaimer is irrelevant beesuce it ic still the problem,

In that context of racism as a personal and institutional problem, with
educational, psychological, sociological, historical - and spiritual -
dimensions, I would interpret the statement, "I'm not prejudiced, but. . ."
to mean, "I am a racist, but I am expressing my racism in socially accepted
ways. In fact, I am not aware of my racism." I think we encounter here the
most serious problem of ell. White people, generally, do not rogard thom
selves as prejudiced or racist. Frank H. Joyce has written a very perccep—
tive paper on racism in which he observes: "Most whites believe sincerely
that thoy do not discriminate against black people. And indeed, institution~
alized, anonymous racism means that many whites do not discriminate in any
direct, overt way. They are rarely given the opportunity." 4

Most white people in a middle-class enelave such as Tippecanoe County
have not engaged in picket lines to prevent school integration, nor have
they been involved in a lynching ~ nor any of the kind of activitics wo are
inclined to attribute to the rural South. But we are talking about something
a little more subtle than overt racism, and the inability of whites to see
it in themselves makes it almost impossible for it to be recognized on an
institutional level.

In Joyce's paper, he points to the difference between personal and
institutional racism; "Individual racism is represented in the bombing of
a Birmingham church building resulting in the death of four black childrone

Tho deaths of five hundred black infants in the same city, compared to the

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mach lower infant mortality rate among whites, is a consequence of institu-
tional, systematic racism." y

We will have reached a major mile~post in this country, and in this
community, when we muster tho courage to confront the horrible ramifications
of that kind of statistic; when we are able to see the way quict personal
prejudice that really means no harm to anyone, is translated and amplificd
in the form of institutional racism. And it is to that process of sensi-
tizing that the succeding Tucsday nights will be devoted. It is my deepest
conviction that it is something that must be done, and that it will domand
of those of us who are white a lot of listening, and of those of us who are
black, a lot of patience.

So the first problem is sensitivity to the fact that regardless of my
color, I am in all probability a racist; and regardless of my intentions :
am a participant in institutions that are racist.

fo start that process of sensitizing, I would suggest that we examine
the roll sterotypes play in our pereeption of people who are different
from ourselves, In terms of our topic, stereotyping means to say, "I'm not
prejudiced, but . . ." and then to go on and attribute to a whole race or
group of poople certain characteristics that have been observed in one person,
or more likely, characteristics attributed to that race by our race with no
basis in fact.

Obviously, white America has a whole bag of myths, or sterotypes of
black people. The entertainment industry, for instance, contributed mightly
to the storcotype of the black man as a happy-go-lucky, foot—-shuffling,
buffoon in the Amos and indy Hevadbert sation: and others. ‘Typically, the
white stercotype of black people includes a love for watermelons, laziness,
superstition, ignorance, athletic and sexual prowess, dirtiness and so on.
One might hope that we are growing out of that, but I am told that it is

still very real. The story is told, for instance, of Thurgood Marshall, who

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was mowing the lawn of his home in a ‘predominantly white district outside
Washington. A neighbor lady was walking by and addressed him: "Boy, what
does the lady of the house pay you for that? To which, Mr. Marshall,
Solicitor General of the United States at the time, replied, "Nothing ma'm
but she does let mo sleep with her evory night."

We are finally able to laigh at tho innane stercotypes of the past, and
that is healthy. Archie Bunker, the anti-hero of the television weekly, "All
in the Family", drags dias all out regularly, in a way that reveals them for
what they are. ind as we sit there and listen to him recite the litany of
racism, we Laugh - because the only other response would be to weep.

For the tragedy of stereotyping is that it allows us to rationalize and
justify our owm racism. Archie Bunker, for instance, can use the stereotype
that "colored folk really prefer to live among their own kind" to justify the
fact that he just doesn't want to be near them. To stereotype is to debasc
and demean o man by stripping him of his individuality. It is to do toa
man, what a well meaning neighbor did to a friend of mine. She said,""Why,
we know you so well we don't even think of you as black." Which is to say,
“we can play this game of friendly neighbors so long as we can pretend that
you are not who you are." Stereotyping makes the black man, as an individual,
invisible to the white man; and most tragic of all, invisible sometimes to
himself. Hascldon calls stereotyping ". . . the ultimate assault... the
final invasion of the last sanctuary of the human soul - a man's right to
be!" 6 .

It was Aldous Huxley who said: :

"If you call a man a bug, it means that you propose to treat

him as a bug. Whereas if you call him a man, it means that

you propose to treat him as a man. My profession is to study

men. Which means that I must always call men by their namo;

Alweys think of them as men; yes, and always treat them as mon. ?

Bocause if you don't treat mon as men, they don't behave as mon.”

om

You know, no one likes to be the victim of a stereotype. That's what
Women's Lib is all about. I find myself resenting the television stereotype
of fathers and husbands as harmless, bumblers, who are not too bright and
certainly not very strong. And very personzslly, I resent the going sterco-—
type of clergymen, as a distinct Ss of people who deserve special treatment,
patronization, whose ears —- it is presumed - are too delicate for the talk of
the street, and who are expected to behave, look, talk and act in strict accord
with the accepted pattern. I can only imagine what it mist be like — to be
placed in a stereotype - always: to live life as a battle to affirm my person—

hood, my inidviduality, my manhood in a culture that is stacked against me.

"I'm not prejudiced, but. . .", means "I am, but in socially accepted
ways." I am sure everyone here could complete the phrase with words that are
personal — words which under investigation will reveal a degree of racism, I
hope you will try to deal with that in your discussion groups. Here are some
starters; some oxamples of ways I have heard the statement completed.

"I'm not prejudiced, but . « ee.

"I wouldn't want my daughter to marry one." Probably, sooner or
later, if we are going to confront the problem of racism, we're going to have
to confront that. Let's be honest with it. Let's acknowledge that for many

.people it is a bitter, distasteful, proposition. Let's have the moral integrity
to call it what it is - the last bastion of racism.

"I'm not prujudiced, but... .

" Thoy're going too fast. .« 2. »

I don't want my childron to go to school with them

I don't want them in my neighborhood because property values

will fall -
We don't have a problem in Lafayette
Thoy have to carn their rights...

They're not grateful for all we're doing...

—Je

Thoy aren't cooperating any more."

And finally, "I'm not prejudiced, but what can I do?*

I'm sure you can add to the list and I would encourage you to do 50.
Allow me the privilege of commenting on several of them from my personal
perspective.

I have lived in this community for less than five years. Changes have
occurred and no one can deny the fact that they have. I live in what was
initially an all-white neighborhood that now has several black familics.
That's on tho plus side of the ledger. But there is still a lot on the minus
gide. On two occasions women from my church have been subjected to obscene
gestures - while transporting black children to nursery school. Now that
makes me angry, and I can only begin to feel the rage of black parents, and
I would suggest that so long as that kind of thing happens we have a problem.

"Thoy're not grateful anymore", to which I would respectfully ask, why
should thoy be?" Why should people be grateful for rights and privileges
guaranteed to all men under the law?

"What can I do?" Well, for starters I can change — my behavior and my
attitudes. I can open my mouth when I hear stereotyping being verbalized®
I can take exception to my neighbor who says, "they're all right, but you
have to i the line somewhere." I can simply ask "Why?" There are a lot

of things I can do.

Very bricfly, let's turn our attention now to the new and different
situation in which we find ourselves vis a vis race relations. Changes have
occurred: laws have changed; the extension of basic rights into education,
public accomodations, employment and housing has happened and is happening.
My black friends will take issue with that, because there is much to bo done.

Many of tho changes have happened. on paper only. My resources tell me, for

inatance, that therc is more segregation in education today than ever before.

te

miOe

Change has happened, but we have a long, long way to go.

In the decade of the 60's black people learned two very important things.
They learned the basic political Sete of cause and effect: that change happens
in response to pressure. They learned that ‘ieee on: as the white man's
gift to the black man, wouldn't work - because white America fought it evory
step of the way.

Think about that decade of the sixtics. I+ bagan with the idealism and
romanticism of the Civil Rights Movomont. If enough people got on the band
wagon; if cnough people went on pilgrimages +o the South; if enough people
wrote letters to congressmen, "Freedom Now" would become a reality. More
than any other man Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. sek! Spicbaette for that. The

high point came in 1963, at one of the largest gatherings Washington, D. C.

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has ever seen. ind King's dream of a society in which all men would be brothers

an integratod society ~ scomed almost within reach. To TH to that speech
today - is to weep at the hope which has now turned to bitterness.

On the heels of 1963 came the assisinations and AS RT RN back-
lash: hope turned to frustration: "We shall overcome" gave way to "Burn, baby
burn". Integration was replaced by something called "Black Power". Theo
turning point for many people came on May 4, 1969,'when James Foreman walked
down the aisle of Riverside Church in Now York City and hurled a series of
demands at its minister and people. Huis rehetoric was Marxist and he was
angry.

The liberals were stunned. People who supported Civil Rights folt
betrayed. Pcople on the fence scurried to get off. We were in a new ball
game and finally cverybody knew it. Black America — had finally learned what
White America knew all tiie, "Power is the name of the gamc."

In the process Black America learned something else as well. That is,
that it's not all that bad to be Siabki In fact, black is beautiful." a

whole heritage was rediscovered, and the profound contributions of black people

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to this nation was finally hold up for everyone to see.

Tho black man suddenly felt liberated from the futile effort to squeeze
into a system that didn't want him - free to rediscover who he was, where
he'd been, and to reclaim the identity that had been meticulously stripped
away; free to onjoy being black instead of trying to be white. He didn't
have to look far for that rediscovering, and what an cye opencr it was!

I learned a lot of things that, strangely, wore never included in my

Civics and History text books. I don't have time to recite what I learned,

and again I would hope succecding Tuesday evenings might sensitize all of us.

to an ignored part of our heritage. Suffice it to say here, that the black
man learned — and hopefully the white man learned — that somehow this people
woe chained and brought here as slaves survived in spite of white ingonuity:
that they not only survived but contributed mightily and significantly to our
common heritage. |

Wie are in a now ball game. And it is foolish to pretend that we can
return to the past - because we cannot. What does the new situation demand?
I think those of us who are white are going to have to learn to stand aside
and let the black man find his own way, make his own mistakes, and stop
superimposing white solutions to overy problem. I think we're going to bisa
to stop paternalizing black oaks — and by that I mean that subtle arrogance
that assumes that we have it within our power to grant a man what is already
hig as an American, and as a man, T think we are going to have to admit that
we are somchow responsible for the black ghetto, and that wo have no right ‘to
demand white, middle-class behavior from people whose every energy has beon
gapped trying to survive. I think we're going to have to stop smarting when
the people we called niggers call us racists. Institutionally, I think we're
going to have to turn things around regardless of what it costs us.

I think wo are called today to conversion, to the classic process of

confession, penance and rebirth, which might be expressed this way: "I am

py

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prejudiced, but I know it, and I'm dealing with it, and I'm being liberated
from ite"

The philosopher Pascal once observed “Because men do not fortify justice,
they justify force." My deepest conviction is that there is a lot at stake
here. fic arc in the midst of a revolution, and where it all comes out will
depend on the attitudes of a lot of white - middle-class people, and a lot
of white middle-class communities like our own. What's at stake? Idoas
like "Life, liberty and the pursuit oy happiness. Ideas like, !Oné n-tion under
God, with liberty and justice for all."

I think we are called today to bear responsibility: to stand up and be
counted. I think among the most important words ever uttered were spoken by
Abraham Lincoln to the Congress of the United States on December 1, 1862.
They are timeless words: they bear repeating; they speak eloquently to us,
where we ares

"Tho dogmas of the quict past, are inadequate to the stormy present.

The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we mst rise with the occasion.
As our caso is new, so we mst think anew, and act anew. . .- + Fellow
citizens, wo cannot escape history. We will be remembered in spite of our~
selves. llc — even we here — hold the power and bear the responsibility «. «
The way is plain, peaceful, goncrous, just - 1a way, which if followed, the

world will cver applaud and God must forever bless."

FOOTNOTES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Bennett, Lerone Jr.
A Certain Dark Joy
Division of Evangelism, United Presbyterian
Church in the U.S.A.
Reprinted by permission from The Negro Mood,
Johnson Publishing Company, Chicago

2. Time Magazine, April 12, 1971

3. Haseldon, Kyle

The Racial Problem in Christian SSUhaanna
Harper and Brothers, New York,
ppe, 78 and 83

4, Joyce, Frank H.

Introduction, Definition and Analysis
People Against Racism, Detroit

p. 3
5. Joyec, Frank H. Thid. p. 4
6. Haseldon, Kyle Op. cite p. 143

7. Huxley, Aldous
Eycless in Gaza
cited in Haseldon, Ibid. p. 137

Allport, Gordon Wl.
The Nature of Prejudice
Beacon Press, Boston 1954

Maston, T, B.
The Bible and Race
Broadman Press, Nashville 1959

Rollins, J. Metz. Jr.
As the Black Community Sees It in
The White Problem,
The United Presbyterian Church,
The United Church of Christ,
The Presbyterian Church U.S.A., 1970

Wilmore, Gayraud 8., Jr.

The Church's Response to the Black Manifesto
Board of Nationa Mission,

United Presbyterian Church

King, Martin luther, Jr.
Why tic Can't Wait
Harper, New York 1964