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Rebecca Fipps
Professor Cindy Chavez
English 85
01 March 2015
Reading Log #9
“The Language of Prejudice” (pp. 324-333)
Personal Comments: 7-10
Facts: 15-25
Personal Comments
Still prejudice?
Facts
1. Without words = No categories
2. Human beings are like grains of sand
3. Noun abstracts from concrete reality
Very unfair treatment.
4. Blind man treated differently because of blindness
5. Labels of primary potency= shrieking sirens
6. People are unaware of basic law of language
Sad to learn how quickly
people judge
7. Experiment proves injustice around names
What is a school marm?
8. School teacher compared to school marm
White is a morbid color in
Egypt.
9. Black considered a morbid color
10. Nouns that cut slices
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11. Rebel at uncomplimentary labels
Not very surprising with
politics
12. Political attitudes= Emphatically repudiate
13. Emotional symbols= actual things
14. Naiveté in confusing language
What is semantic therapy
and why a large measure?
15. Reduction of prejudice must include a large measure of
semantic therapy
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Rebecca Fipps
Professor Cindy Chavez
English 85
01 March 2015
Student Reader Response #9
“The Language of Prejudice” (pp. 324-333)
 Answer ALL questions: “Thinking Critically”
 Academic Paragraph: 7-12
1. Allport’s thesis is that without words we should scarcely be able to form categories at
all. This was the first sentence of this essay and I believe it fits as the thesis statement.
This essay is about prejudice and the power of how words can make the unfair
categories that people fit into. Therefore this sentence foreshadows Allport’s later
argument about the degrading terms people are judged as and how they are treated
differently. There is also the way he talks about how powerful words can be. So yes
without words we would not have the categories that separate humans. But would that
mean prejudice is based on our words or on our actions? That depends on what a
person believes is human nature.
2. I believe Allport used the grains of sand metaphor to symbolize a sense of
unionization between humans. Grains of sand would usually have us imagine a great
number of people and without that large number there would be small unimportant
pieces that do not fit as a whole. It is also a great example of there being too much
when used as a symbol for people. Too many thoughts, too much for a single human
being to understand. In my opinion, this was a perfect metaphor to use and any
average reader would be able to understand his point. It also adds a little of a personal
touch to his essay. A way to see behind the words to the author’s personality.
3. Another quotation Allport used was to compare the terms school teacher and school
marm. When you imagine a school teacher you would probably see your homeroom
teacher or a kind face that remembers you of school, but a school marm is a different
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story. A school marm would remember you of an elderly woman with a strict rule set
and graying hair, not a pleasant thought for schoolchildren. One other example would
be the term communist. Many people after World War II were quick to blame the
Communist Party and suddenly the word, communist, seemed like a degrading term. I
think both of these quotations are very effective for what Allport’s trying to convey.
My reason for this is because these are very simple examples for the reader to
understand. They knew all about their school teachers and certainly many people
know about the Communist Party.
4. I believe by nouns that cut slices, Allport meant that nouns can cut into the categories
to fit certain features into other categories. Meaning that a noun can cluster features
into a single category, no matter if the feature would fit better in a different category.
That makes a noun unfair because it abstracts from a concrete reality some one
feature and assembles different concrete realities with the same feature. Which means
that the noun can change the categories with features from other categories. That
brings to question what else could a noun change and how that works in the english
language. And while this is a strange concept, it is truthful. A noun changes how a
sentence works so why would it change a category?
5. Labels of primary potency are the labels that point to some crippling incapacity.
Allport claimed these as shrieking sirens because they deafen us to finer
discriminations that we might perceive. Such as ignoring the ability of a blind man
just because he is blind and not because of the skills he has obtained. It is an unfair
statement and forces the man to be judged by something he cannot control. Such
labels are important to this essay because it is a clear example of prejudice. To judge
someone by their disabilities is to treat them unfair and past the bounds of human
rights. One would have to wonder if a disability label is similar to that of an ethnic
label.
6. The experiment with the college girls showed that someone’s last name and/or
ethnically background can dramatically change how people feel about them. At first
the girls had high scores in beauty, intelligence, character, ambition and general
likeability. But when the second test came around, a few weeks after the first, do
you know what happened? The random strangers who judged the girls, suddenly
decreased their scores because of the girls having a Jewish, Italian or Irish names.
These labels affected how the mind perceives a person. The strangers had no idea to
who the girls were, but with harmful stereotypes they made harsh assumptions about
them. It is a sickening thought that someone could be judged based on their last name.
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7. Allport’s term “orphaned pronoun they” means that a person may want or need to
designate out-groups even if they did not have a clear idea of who that out-group is.
So a person speaks of the mysterious they who is making changes the person doesn’t
agree with. But when a person is asked who they is, the person may become
embarrassed or confused because they are not certain. I believe this term is used so
offer in conversion because it is easier. You can complain all you want about some
group that annoys you without having to place your wrath on a specific group. You
would also not get into trouble because you’re not blaming any one group, you’re
blaming they. But it is a grand way to look like a fool when someone realizes you’re
not sure who you’re talking about.
8. Symbol phobia is a fear of being called a label that is unsavory. No one wants to be
called something bad or at the very least something that they strongly believe they are
not. I believe this illustrates the unfairness of labeling because there are people who
are not ashamed of the labels others call them. Do you think communism would have
lasted if its members were ashamed of being communists? No and the idea that
someone can be act so poorly by being called a term they don’t like, is childish at
best. It is that unfairness that causes so much conflict between different groups. It
would be a lot simpler if people were not afraid of being called something they don’t
like.
9. In the early 1950s, the cold war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union intensified
causing the Red Scare. Which was hysteria over the perceived threat posed by the
communists. I believe this helps explain why Allport devoted so many paragraphs to
the evolution of the label communist. There was such a hatred of the term and while
Allport seems caught in the middle of whether it is or is not prejudice, he still
explained in detail about the degradation of the term. Today the term communist is
still seen as something unsavory, but it no longer holds as much hate. I personally
have not met too many people who treat communism as something hellish and
terrible. So Allport’s opinion might be bias by being an American who lived through
the red scare.