Race Prejudice as a Sense of Group Position

TLDR

The paper argues that race prejudice is fundamentally a sense of group position rather than individual feelings, proposing a new approach to its study. The approach reframes analysis from individual emotions to the intergroup relationship, emphasizing the collective process by which one racial group defines or redefines another. This shift is expected to provide a more realistic and penetrating understanding of race prejudice.

Abstract

In this paper I am proposing an approach to the study of race prejudice different from that which dominates contemporary scholarly thought on this topic. My thesis is that race prejudice exists basically in a sense of group position rather than in a set of feelings which members of one racial group have toward the members of another racial group. This different way of viewing race prejudice shifts study and analysis from a preoccupation with feelings as lodged in individuals to a concern with the relationship of racial groups. It also shifts scholarly treatment away from individual lines of experience and focuses interest on the collective process by which a racial group comes to define and redefine another racial group. Such shifts, I believe, will yield a more realistic and penetrating understanding of race prejudice.