Ideological Racism vs Prejudice Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Ideological Racism vs preconceived opinion - Essay ExampleIn the case of the United States, for much of the countrys history, the important institutions were dominated by the albumen Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) community. As a result, all other immigrant groups were disadvantaged from the outset. Even among snowys, Eastern European ethnic groups and South European communities (the most prominent of which are the Italian Americans) were discriminated against. The challenges were all the more engulf for immigrant groups of other races. This includes the Hispanics, African Americans and Asian Americans. A typical example of the potency of ideological racism is the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which barred Chinese immigrants from attaining citizenship. This legislation was prompted by the ideology of the dominant group, the WASPs, who believed in clay sculpture American society on the basis of their traditional values and beliefs.Prejudice, when compared with ideological racism , is relatively unstructured. Prejudice is by and large an expression at the individual level, as opposed to ideological racism which is clearly defined and recognized by the entire society. Since prejudice can differ from one individual to the other, and since it does not lend itself to blowzy definitions, it is tough to study it sociologically. Ideological racism, by virtue of being part of mainstream discourse, as well as being well-documented, gives the sociologist a lot of factual and statistical material to conduct his/her analysis. Seen in this way, ideological racism can be said to be more sociological.Similar logic can be utilize in differentiating between institutional discrimination and other forms of discrimination. Institutional discrimination is the blatant expression of disfavour attitudes and beliefs, which is often backed by legislation. For example, before 1960s, black children were not allowed to register in schools exclusively meant for white children. This p olicy of segregation was backed by law, which