Type-Rationalizations of Group Antipathy

Abstract

T HE historic factors which have made for the development of group antagonlisms are often complex and difficult for the sociological investigator to evaluate. There is one source of evidence bearing on the origin of racial antipathy which can, I find, be quite generally disregarded. This source is the explanation given by the members of an in-group for their antipathy towards the members of an out-group. Such an explanation is more in the nature of a justification than a reason and is far more likely to operate as a red herring drawn across the investigator's path than as a clue to the factors which have actually led to the development of racial antipathy. People generally justify their antagonisms towards other people. The following study illustrates how, in one case at least, the explanations offered were impressive and convincing, but entirely fallacious, type-rationalizations. In Fresno County, California, there is a group of firstand second-generation Armenian immigrants so set apart from the remainder of the population that they form a distinct colony. When the Armenians first settled in the region, it was sparsely populated. They have never amounted to more than six per cent of the total and remain after some fifty years a definite out-grouping. A study of the verbal attitudes involved in the situation reflects, of course, this cleavage between the Armenian and the non-Armenian members of the community. A conventional social-distance questionnaire, conducted through the effective medium of personal interviews, revealed that of 6io non-Armenians taken at random, 9Z.5 per cent considered that the Armenians belong to a definite out-group. This proportion would not willingly permit any Armenian to become a family member by marriage. Even the idea of belonging to the same club, or other formal grouping, seemed repugnant to 84 per cent of the total. But 36 per cent would, if necessary, work with Armenians, and an equal number thought they might hire them should the occasion arise. Not quite one-half of those interviewed believed that the Armenians deserved the status of American citizens, although, as a matter of fact, most of them already have it. While some went so far as to suggest that the only cure for the Armenian problem in Fresno County would be the importation of a few Turkish butchers, the majority considered that the Armenian was all right if he would only stay in his place, Armenia; and a small minority was willing to overlook his faults out of sympathy for the persecution he had received at the hands of the Turk. But that he had more than his normal proportion of faults, few nonArmenians would deny. There is little that is significant in such a study of racial attitudes. The findings could have been easily and accurately deduced from objective evidence, particularly from the fact that the Armenians have tried without notable success for fifty years to become an integral part of community life. But the reasons which non-Armenians advanced for their antipathy are significant, since they tend to fit three distinct stereotypes and, particularly, because these stereotypes are in every in-