The Structure of Hate

What can possibly make men bomb Negro children in their churches? A policy designed to maintain social privilege?—But the bombers and blind racists have done more than anyone to break down segregation laws. If they were acting out of the calculus of policy, they could not be so infallibly impolitic.

Is it, then, a matter of intellectual error? Are the racists misled—by arguments from Scripture, history, climate, IQ tests, etc.—into the idea that Negroes are subhuman? If that were true, then better exegesis, better history and statistics, might dispel their error. But biological and theological arguments did not give birth to prejudice, however much they are used to bastion it; and scientific data will not extirpate men’s bias.

GW

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Garry Wills

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What can possibly make men bomb Negro children in their churches? A policy designed to maintain social privilege?—But the bombers and blind racists have done more than anyone to break down segregation laws. If they were acting out of the calculus of policy, they could not be so infallibly impolitic.

Is it, then, a matter of intellectual error? Are the racists misled—by arguments from Scripture, history, climate, IQ tests, etc.—into the idea that Negroes are subhuman? If that were true, then better exegesis, better history and statistics, might dispel their error. But biological and theological arguments did not give birth to prejudice, however much they are used to bastion it; and scientific data will not extirpate men’s bias.