I'm not prejudiced, but...

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I don't want to sound prejudiced or anything, but for one, I am not going to vote for a colored man to be our president
—An anonymous voter interviewed during the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election campaign.[1]

Any sentence that starts with the words "I'm not prejudiced, but...," or similar formations ("I'm not racist, but..." or "I'm not homophobic," "not sexist," etc.) is likely to contradict itself very rapidly. The technical term for this type of statement is false front, but the colloquial but-head is often used, with or without irony. Saying a sentence that starts with "I'm not X, but..." likely means that you are X.

These words are often spoken in the mistaken belief that simply saying "I'm not prejudiced" is enough to exempt the speaker from responsibility for the offensive comment they are about to make. In this context, the "I'm not prejudiced" statement is an example of argument by assertion, although it's sometimes backed up by non sequitur statements such as "I like curry"[2] or "I enjoy the music of Queen and the Pet Shop Boys,"[3] to demonstrate just how unprejudiced the speaker is.

Variations include ending the sentence with "not that there's anything wrong with being gay/black/whatever" after they have just made an offensive statement about them. Or the old classic, "I'm not anti-(fill in the blank), some of my best friends are (fill in the blank)." Or, for the truly curmudgeonly, "I'm not prejudiced, I hate everybody equally!" Or, as one editor's grandmother is fond of saying: "The Lord knows I cherish black people, but..."

The increasing prevalence of these kinds of statements demonstrates one of the more annoying effects of political correctness, in that people with controversial opinions are more concerned about others thinking that they are racist or otherwise discriminatory than scrutinizing the actual content of their real beliefs and statements. "I'm not prejudiced but..." is a plea for acceptance from others, not an attempt to be more accepting and self-aware in good faith. Thus, this genre of false front statement reveals that the speaker is more afraid to be branded as racist or otherwise prejudiced than to even acknowledge to themselves their own prejudices.

Simultaneously, organizations which are undoubtedly racist have attempted to improve their image with the same kind of rhetoric. For example, in a policy statement for the far-right British National Party, leader Nick Griffin repeatedly states that the party is "not racist," while laying out his vision for an all-white Britain and his belief that nationality is defined along blood lines rather than residency or even cultural factors.[4]

If you have doubts as to the appropriateness of your words or beliefs or if you think they may marginalize others, the appropriate course of action is to scrutinize them and then if they are harmful, not express those things. Even if one ends up making a mistake, one good apology and a sincere and sustained effort to self-check and change one's outlook is more appreciated than any awkwardly non-sensical assertions of "I have a black friend" or "I'm not a bigot but... please overlook that I really want to say something that harmfully generalizes women/disabled people/people of varying gender and/or sexuality and/or ethnicity."

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[edit] External links

[edit] Footnotes

  1. Obama's Racial Identity Still An Issue, CBS, Nov. 27, 2007
  2. Classic Not the Nine O'Clock News sketch.
  3. in The Office
  4. "The BNP: Anti-asylum protest, racist sect or power-winning movement?" at the BNP website.
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