What is Prejudice?

In his article, “What is Racism?”, Thomas Jackson exposes some of the distortions in the ways in which “racism” is currently defined. In fact, there are a number of other words whose meanings have been similarly distorted.

Take, for example, the word “prejudice.” This means reaching a conclusion before all the facts are in. Of course, all the facts are rarely in. I may call a person prejudiced if I think he should have gathered more evidence or examined it more closely. He may even have refused to examine the evidence at all or, in extreme cases, maintain an opinion in the face of what I would regard as decisive evidence to the contrary. This definition of prejudice would fit a man who refused to hire someone of another race, only because of the unexamined assumption that all people of that race were incapable of doing the job.

Nevertheless, the definition also fit egalitarians. There is no need to go into detail about the large body of evidence suggesting that the races of man differ substantially and innately. Suffice it to say that egalitarians ignore this evidence or, at the very least, hold it to impossibly high standards of proof. They then have the temerity to say that anyone who has examined the evidence of inequality and persuaded by it is prejudiced.”

“Discrimination” is another word that has changed in meaning. In the strictest sense, it means to assign things (or events or anything else) to classes. A “discriminating” man used to be one who was admired because of his reliable ability to assign things to subtle categories of the desirable and undesirable.

Discrimination becomes illegitimate if the assignment is based on a rigid adherence to unproven assumptions. Once again, to assign all members of a race to the class of “criminals” or “incompetents” is not merely to discriminate, but discriminate unfairly.

However, in a racial context, discrimination has taken on a new meaning: that of preference for one’s own kind. Such a preference may be the result of much gathering of evidence and reflection, but it may not. I may simply prefer the traits that are characteristic of my group, without having thought a great deal about the separate evolution of the peoples or the possibility of innate differences.

It is this confusion of preference with prejudice that so well serves egalitarian moralizing. Whites (but only whites) have been persuaded that such preference is the same as illegitimate discrimination. In fact, it so natural a feeling that it must be something akin to instinct.

A warm regard for the special achievements of one’s own race may entail a misunderstanding or even the disparagement of the special achievements of other races. This is normal and even healthy. A student of patriotism once observed that all nations think themselves superior to their neighbors — and that all nations are right. There is a loyalty to one’s own kind that is deeply rooted in differences. So long as there are differences their will be loyalties.

What whites need most is something that whites have never lost. That is the conviction that their preferences are not only natural, but healthy and moral. The moral initiative must be seized from the egalitarians, who have turned the preferences (but not those of other races) into “prejudice.” We need a critical mass of brave men and women who no longer deny the differences between races and, without malice to others, embrace their preferences.