@walterallenhaxton Consider this example from the article:
“because these things tend to occur together, in the absence of having some more detailed information about a prospective passenger, the driver is correct to use the passenger’s race, sex, and age as factors in his decision. He is correct to conclude that picking up a young black man in his cab (as opposed to picking up someone else) will increase the probability that he will be a victim of assault or other criminal conduct. The rational cab driver knows this, and acts accordingly, avoiding fares that he thinks are high risk, based on those characteristics he is able to observe about his prospective passengers.”
“Prejudice” doesn’t have to involve a visceral dislike for this or that group. If you think that an individual is more (or less) likely to have a certain character or level of ability because he belongs to a certain demographic category, that is a prejudice, a pre-judging.
There may very well be statistics that indicate that there is a correlation between number of criminal convictions and a particular race. Acknowledging such a correlation doesn’t in itself constitute prejudice; this is useful information for diagnosing problems within society at large. But as soon as you look at an individual and feel that because of his race you know something about his propensities based on this correlation, that’s prejudice. There may be some subtle semantic difference between thinking “that guy is black, so there’s a good chance he’s a criminal” and thinking “I don’t like blacks because they’re a bunch of criminals”, but if both ways of thinking result in the black guy not getting the ride, then the result is the same. And it’s the result that counts on a societal level.
Going back to my employment example, you say that I can get a lot more information on which to base my decision, but until I get that information, the black guy starts off under the assumption that he’s more likely than a white guy to be a criminal. I’d then have to look for some evidence to the contrary to ease my fears. What questions would I ask this black man in front of me to determine whether he’s criminally inclined? I mean, all black male criminals have a first crime, right? So maybe this guy just hasn’t gotten started yet and is a ticking time bomb. Do I go by whether he’s “well-spoken” or has a “ghetto” inflection to his speech? What does that really tell me? No matter what I learn about him, the correlation between race and crime is still there, isn’t it?