Racial prejudice and discrimination are an all to common part of our cognitive social being, but many social psychologists believe that it can be stopped, but only with the help of social conditioning. Dr. Araia explains racism and racial prejudice as "complex attributes and manifestations of mostly differentiated structured class societies." Racial prejudice refers to a special type of attitude, usually something negative toward any group or ethnicity that is not of one's own social class. Respecting human dignity, in contrast to forming stereotypes and discriminating amongst one another, will eliminate the sickness that racism spreads.
             Why does racial prejudice exist? Individuals hold prejudiced views because doing so allows them to bolster their own self-image. Thus, a person makes himself or herself believe they are better than another, giving them a feeling of greater importance. An additional reason for holding prejudice views is that doing so can save us considerable cognitive effort. Dr. Araia, mentions how ancient geographer Solinus, portrays Africa as "filthy people and monstrous wild animals and dragons." Such prejudice views are a form of collective representation because a person forms views of certain social groups through analyzing the individual traits of one group member, forming one opinion for the whole group.
             Now when racial prejudice is acted upon by an individual it is called discrimination. African Americans, for years have had to endure extreme amounts of discrimination. Though in recent years discrimination has decreased, it has all but vanished from our society. Early on in our history, people were less subtle than they are today when it comes discrimination. Everything in our society was segregated; every group had their own facilities and was not to be used by members of a different group. At this time people felt less remorse for expressing openly racist views. They would state that they w...