Free Essay: Race Prejudice as a Sense of Group Position

Prejudice usually exists in the form of feelings levied on another person. The act is based on irrelevant reasons, which leads to effective feelings directed to either an individual or a group. Normally, prejudice feelings are preconceived concerning an individual's social group. These unreasonable feelings could be applied on the ground of ethnic, religious, racial or other social groups. In this paper, I discuss the relationship between racial prejudice and group position.

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Race prejudice is the act of directing biased feeling and prior assumptions on a person based on the race factor. This act of bias is applied without having sufficient and crucial knowledge of the person's social behaviours and beliefs. Through racial prejudice, a person is mistreated with feelings of hostility, intolerance, antipathy, and aggressiveness. In normal occasions, racial prejudice appears to be performed by a single person. However, the underlying truth is that this form of prejudice originates from a group of people. The behaviour is instigated by different people within a specific group, coming together to discuss matters affecting them. It tends to be easier for people within a specific group to interact due to the common similarities in the way of social life. As a result, conflicts emerge from different groups based on feelings of superiority that one group has over the other. The superior group is considered an in-group, while the less superior groups are visualized as out-groups. In terms of racial prejudice, minority groups are treated with hostility and a sense of not belonging to the entire society.

Different dominant feelings emerge from racial prejudice as a result of group positions. The first feeling entails group superiority, which in effect damages the psychological belonging of the minority group in a society. Secondly, the subordinate race feels strange and intrinsically different from the group triggering the misconceptions. Another feeling arises in the sense of social privileges and proprietary claims favouring the superior, unlike the minority racial groups. Accordingly, suspicions that emerge concerning privileges granted to less dominant races impact in feelings of hatred and hostility that can cause physical injuries and insecurity among the groups. Group positions rather than specific individuals greatly influence all these feelings of racial prejudice.

Effects of racial prejudice are prominent on the indifferences among races. Since members of a dominant race anticipate to sustain their racial status, they develop apprehension, resentment, and animosity on subordinate groups. This may lead to violence among the groups. In case of violence, the physical attacks are directed to the less superior racial groups due to negative imaginations that result from group interactions. Resultant impacts of social violence as a result of racial differences are not directed to specific persons but on the dominant racial groups. Another effect is social isolation, which results in psychological harms on the part being prejudiced. Individuals in such situations are isolated by considering their race instead of personal attributes.

In conclusion, racial prejudice is directly associated with group positions. Negative perceptions that instigate racial prejudice are applied to a person based on the group he or she belongs. Generally, racial groups possess interest that is substantially different from other groups. It from these group interests that racial prejudice, as well as its consequences, emanate. In addition, the negative feelings and consequences felt by victims of racial prejudice are attributed to the differences in racial classes. Therefore, race prejudice stems from the negative thoughts and attitudes possessed by groups rather than specific individuals.