“Understanding Race and Ethnic Relations” by Vincent Parrillo

NB: We do not resell your papers. Upon ordering, we do an original paper exclusively for you.

NB: All your data is kept safe from the public.

Table of Contents

Introduction
The relation between prejudice and discrimination
The origins of prejudiced behavior
The contribution of the author
Conclusion
Bibliography

Introduction

In this essay, we are going to discuss the book Understanding Race and Ethnic Relations, written by Vincent Parrillo. In particular, we need to focus on chapters 4 and 5, which analyze such concepts as prejudice, discrimination, and the relation between them. According to the scholar, prejudice can be defined as “an attitudinal system”, whereas discrimination is the behavior triggered by such attitude (Parrillo, p 105). In this work, he scrutinizes several important problems, like for instance the psychology of the biased position and its origins. Furthermore, he examines various manifestations of this phenomenon and its underlying causes. Parrillo covers a great number of aspects but the main argument, which the author advances, is that in the vast majority of cases such unfavorable opinion or prejudice is strongly resilient to logic, and very often people may be so firmly convinced of their rectitude that they are inclined to ignore facts that might possibly break their stereotypes (Parrillo, p 76).

The relation between prejudice and discrimination

Vincent Parrillo distinguishes several levels of discrimination, namely, verbal expression, avoidance, segregation, and physical (or moral) abuse (Parrillo, p 108). He claims that these levels or types of discrimination should not be rigidly separated, because any person can select each of them, much depends upon the circumstances or situation. Besides, the author believes that people may often behave in a prejudiced manner against representatives of other ethnic groups, just because they try to conform to the majority. On the one hand, they may not be able to form their own conclusions or they are afraid of fighting against discrimination, because this struggle may adversely affect their status in society.

The origins of prejudiced behavior

However, the most interesting aspect of Vincent Parrillos work is his analysis of the factors, which create tension among various racial, ethnic or religious groups. He marks out several origins of such prejudiced attitude, particularly, self-justification, which means that occasionally, certain individuals can slander representatives of other nationalities in order to justify their immoral actions. The scholar draws numerous examples to substantiate his standpoint of view; he mentions Native Americans who were often labeled as “heathen pagans” by Western European colonists, who tried to vindicate their violent measures against Indians.

Another factor is the so-called “frustration”, which means that people often attribute the blame for all their hardships to other nationalities. Vincent Parrillo calls it “Scapegoating” (Parrillo, p 83). Apart from that, the author discusses this issue within a psychological framework: he says that prejudiced attitude authoritarian personality of parents, who subdue their children into obedience. The thing is such children are mostly driven by fear, they perceive themselves as weak and subsequently, they try to find someone whom they can abuse.

The contribution of the author

Overall, it seems that Vincent Parrillos book significantly contributes to our understanding of racial, or ethnic discrimination. The scholar has eloquently demonstrated that it stems from various social and psychological origins. He proves that modern society is often unable to break common stereotypes, deep-rooted in public opinion. In part, mass media play rather a negative role, instead of promoting racial equality, they often only intensify the tension and further estrange people. The analysis, which Vincent Parrillo provides might be very helpful to those people, who struggle against prejudice and discrimination.

Conclusion

To conclude, Vincent Parrillo examines the mechanism of biased attitude and behavior. The scholar looks at this problem from sociological and psychological points of view, carefully describing the root causes of animosity between various ethnic, cultural or religious groups.

Bibliography

Vincent N. Parrillo (2004). “Understanding Race and Ethnic Relations”. Allyn & Bacon, Incorporated.

Click Here To Order Now!

“Understanding Race and Ethnic Relations” by Vincent Parrillo

Do you need this or any other assignment done for you from scratch?

We have qualified writers to help you.

We assure you a quality paper that is 100% free from plagiarism and AI.

You can choose either format of your choice ( Apa, Mla, Havard, Chicago, or any other)