Merton's Typology Of Prejudice And Discrimination

When looking at Merton’s typology of prejudice and discrimination, the idea that people are either prejudice or unprejudice, and they either do discriminate or do not all, depends on the beholder of this context. While nothing in this world is black and white, as Merton’s typology insinuates, one must first look at the definition of each of the two traits. In the case of Dalton Conley, he states that prejudice is the “thought and feeling about an ethical or racial group,” but discrimination is “an act” in regards to those feelings (Conley 361). In my opinion, I believe that people, no matter who they are, still have prejudice towards people that are different than themselves. While many people are prejudice (i.e stereotyping), not everyone
In regards to prejudice and discrimination, I undergo this struggle everyday, as many people do. Since I am of asian decent, many people have placed me under a stereotype of being good at math, science, and that I want to be a doctor or dentist of some sort. While yes I do fall under these categories, these prejudices are not so bad to have as an individual. It pushes you to do better so that you can meet those stereotypes, but while this is a good type of prejudice, there are many that are also bad. Growing up in a Korean household, my first language was Korean and living in a predominately white demographic, I would always receive criticism from my classmates when I was younger. Combined with my inability to speak English fluently as well as my Korean lunches, I was the topic of bullying for a couple years. The prejudice is shown when I couldn’t speak english very well, which gave the notion to my classmates that I was stupid and weird. The discrimination came when kids would verbally bully me saying comments such as “are you eating