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Luis Aguilar
Professor Darcy Gioia
REaCH-Humanities
July 14, 2009
Parrillo vs. C.P Ellis
Prejudice is a very serious and heinous problem around the world that’s been
around forever. You can find many examples of prejudice throughout history like the holocaust
which was the genocide, mass killing, of all Jews all because of false stereotypes. You still find
yourself in prejudice situations and may wonder why people are like that. While in Humanities
class I have recently read an oral interview recorded by Studs Terkel which is about a man
named C.P Ellis life. His life is full of many turning points which include him joining the KKK
and then leaving it to work with a black woman named Ann Atwater. Meanwhile I also read
“Causes of Prejudice” by Vincent N. Parrillo who explains many causes of prejudice. These
causes of prejudice are scapegoting, displaced aggression, socialization process which all can
classify Ellis actions. These causes relate to C.P Ellis life because of his past experience and the
outcomes of these experiences. C.P Ellis main turning point in life is when he left the KKK
which can be because of many reasons, but I believe there is certain incident in his life that
changed his perspective towards the KKK.
Parrillo’s scapegoating concept helps explain Ellis in many ways base on many incidents
throughout his life. Scapegoating is a term that originated with the Hebrew when a priest use to
hold a goat’s head and transfer the human sins into it and band it from the country, freeing the
people from their sins. Parillo defines scapegoating as “blaming others for something that is not
their fault,” (511) which are exactly what Ellis did to the African American. Ellis scapegoats
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African Americans for his financial and domestic problems because he felt that America was bad
because of them. A quote from Ellis that proves how the quote and he are related is when he said
“I didn’t know who to blame,” (Terkel) which shows how he wanted to redirect his problem to
someone else. He could not handle the pressure anymore so he had to blame someone else to
make himself feel better. Another quote that supports my beliefs is when he said “I tried to find
somebody, I began to blame black people,” (Terkel) which shows his victims. He picks an ethnic
group that was weak and defenseless against him and could not fight back. America was against
the black race which made them the perfect victims to people in similar situation as Ellis.
Another interesting Parrillo concept that can represent Ellis actions in life is “displaced
aggression,” (509) which deals with your emotions. Parrillo define displace aggression as
“directing their hostility against a powerless group to compensate for their feeling of insecurity
and fear.” (509) When Ellis was young he was ashamed of the way his father dress and Ellis was
also tease about his clothing. He truly loves his father, but did not like how he struggle in life and
gave his extra money to Ellis instead of using it himself. A quote stated by Ellis “I always left
school late afternoon with a sense of inferiority.” (519) which shows how he was angry with
himself at such a young age and he did not know why or who. I believe this leads to his actions
later in life because he held his madness inside and release later in life. It may be possible that
Ellis join the KKK because he was very angry inside and wanted to direct his angry to any
ethnical group below him. As a result, he joins the KKK and enjoy hurting people in order to
releases some of his own stress and angry that build up throughout his life.
Parrillo has many interesting concepts that relate to Ellis, but there is one that I believe
pertains to Ellis the most which is socialization process. Socialization process is “individuals
acquire the values, attitude, beliefs, and perceptions of their culture or subculture, including
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religion, nationality, and social class. “(Parrillo) Ellis acquires many traits from his father which
include racism, drinking, and beliefs, all by watching him. Ellis may have not realized that by
watching his dad he is slowly turn into him in some way. I believe that Ellis joins the KKK and
hates black people because he got this from his father. A quote from the Ellis “natural person for
me to hate would be black people, because my father before me was a member of the Klan”
which shows how his father also hated black people. This all relates back to socialization process
because he got his hatred for black people from his father.
While Ellis was in the KKK he was very active and loved his secret organization and
would do anything for them. He felt as if he was in the perfect organization and they were a real
brother hood. He soon started to feel as if he was being use, but he could not prove it just yet. He
realize that the council men use the KKK to fight the blacks so that they can stay in power and a
quote from Ellis that proves this is “ when it comes to money, the green, the other colors make
no difference.”(523) This proves that he now knows that the council man did not care about
white or black, but instead what was important is to stay in power keeping their capital. It was
not until one day when he seen a familiar man who he talk to many times and been to the man
house were both walking downtown. Ellis seen the man expected a hand shake, but instead the
man cross the street which change Ellis mind set forever. Ellis said “I began to get that feeling
after I was ignored in public,” which shows how in that moment he realize the truth behind the
KKK. Which then lead to his withdraw from the KKK to later join an African American woman
named Ann Atwater who he once hated with a “purple passion.”(524)
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