Causes of Prejudice

prepossess is an opinion that is not ground on actual evidence or experience. In Causes of Prejudice, Vincent Parillo describes the psychological and sociological reasons of preconceived opinion. Among these causes, frustration is defined to produce a prejudicial attitude towards others. Parillo explains in his work that through break history, minority groups have been used as scapegoats to choose the blame for certain events. He clarifies that scapegoating is the act of blaming others for an incident that is not their fault.This idea is as well as telescopic in the bracing To Kill a jeerer by Harper Lee, in the art where a lawyer named genus Atticus tries to put forward an African American innocent who has been falsely charged with raping a white wo gentlemans gentleman. Therefore, both Parillos Causes of Prejudice and Harper Lees To Kill a scoffer support that frustration is a cause of prejudice because of an increase in onset towards a scapegoat. To begin with, frustrat ion is caused by relative deprivation, which is the lose of resources in an individuals environment when compared to others.This results in infringement towards a scapegoat in order to relieve this tension. Frustrated people ay easily strike out against the perceived cause of their frustration. However, this reaction may not be come-at-able because the true source of the frustration is often too nebulous to be identified or too powerful to act against (Parillo 583). His view is also seen in To Kill a Mockingbird, when Mayella Ewell claims Tom Robinson has raped her. Atticus tries to prove to the Jury that Tom Robinson in fact did not rape Mayella and that she, a white woman, kissed Tom, a black man.Mayella is an Ewell a very poor family in the town of Maycomb and therefore she has to live through tough onditions which include reenforcement behind the garbage dump, barely having any money to support her soda and seven siblings, as well as being beaten by her own father. Most imp ortantly, she is frustrated that she always feels dissatisfied with her life since she was never able to experience any happiness by being isolate from the lie in of the world. Therefore, she tries to at least kiss a black man to feel some sense of happiness.When she realizes it is condemned by indian lodge, her frustration increases partly because society is not allowing her to have a small amount of happiness, and o she shows her aggression by blaming Tom Robinson for raping her. In addition, aggression resulted from frustration is pinpointed towards scapegoats because they share same characteristics of being vulnerable to blame. The group must be (1) highly visible in physical appearance or observable customs and acations (2) not strong enough to strike back (3) situated within soft access of the dominant group .. (Parillo 584). To Kill a Mockingbird takes throw in in southern Alabama in the 1930s. This was the time period where prejudice against African Americans was pres ent. Segregation was present because having white skin was een to be rectify than having black skin. This simple difference in skin cloak resulted in an unfair treatment of African Americans. Separate bathrooms, drinking fountains, churches, and schools resulted for African Americans and whites. Also, since whites felt up that the blacks were inferior to them, they tended to assume all blacks were unintelligent.When Mayella copes with her frustration of being isolated from the rest of the world by blaming Tom Robinson, the court looks at his skin color instead of the evidence given tor this case. Even though Atticus provides vision ot evidence that roves that it was impossible for Tom to commit the rape of Mayella, Tom is sedate found guilty because even if Mayella is part of the lower class of Maycomb, she is calm a white woman, making her superior to Tom Robinson.It is evident that frustration plays an important role in determining prejudicial attitudes. Both the novel To Ki ll a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and Causes of Prejudice by Vincent Parillo, agree that frustration is caused by relative deprivation and when aggression forms, the blame is placed on scapegoats. These scapegoats share similar characteristics which allow them to be vulnerable to the blame that falls upon them.