Page 362 - The Social Animal

344 The Social Animal

prior hints that they would gladly return to segregation if distur-
bances occurred; peaceful integration has generally followed firm and
forceful leadership.” 87 In other words, if people were not given the
opportunity to reduce dissonance, there was violence. As early as
1953, Kenneth B. Clark observed the same phenomenon during
88
desegregation in some of the border states. He discovered that im-
mediate desegregation was far more effective than gradual desegre-
gation. Moreover, violence occurred in those places where ambiguous
or inconsistent policies were employed or where community leaders
tended to vacillate. The same kind of thing happened when military
units began to desegregate during World War II: Trouble was great-
est where policies were ambiguous. 89

But All Other Things Are Not Always Equal In the pre-
ceding section, I presented an admittedly oversimplified view of a
very complex phenomenon. I did this intentionally as a way of indi-
cating how things can proceed theoretically under ideal conditions.
But conditions are seldom ideal; there are almost always some com-
plicating circumstances. Let us now look at some of the complica-
tions and then discuss how they might be eliminated or reduced.
When I stated that prejudice was reduced in an integrated hous-
ing project, I made special note of the fact that it was a public hous-
ing project. Some complications are introduced if integration involves
privately owned houses. Primarily, there is a strong belief among
whites that, when blacks move into a neighborhood, real estate values
decrease. This belief introduces economic conflict and competition,
which militate against the reduction of prejudiced attitudes. Indeed,
systematic investigations in integrated private housing show an in-
crease in prejudiced attitudes among the white residents. 90
Moreover, as I mentioned, the experiments on the psychology
of inevitability were done in the laboratory, where the dislikes in-
volved in the studies were almost certainly not as intense or deep-
seated as racial prejudice is in the real world. Although it is
encouraging to note that these findings were paralleled by the data
from actual desegregation efforts, it would be naive and misleading
to conclude that the road to desegregation will always be smooth
as long as individuals are given the opportunity to come to terms
with inevitability. Frequently, trouble begins once desegregation
starts.This is often due, in part, to the fact that the contact between