ABSTRACT
With a depressing degree of regularity, national attention in the United States becomes focused on prominent individuals who are caught in the act of making racist, sexist, homophobic, or otherwise prejudiced remarks, “jokes,” or tirades. Such exposés are frequently paired with adamant assertions by the purveyors of these commentaries that they are not prejudiced people; indeed, they hold themselves to be good people, and they sometimes even seem to experience a sense of surprise at their own behavior, being unsure about the origins of their prejudiced remarks. However, they are quite sure that, whatever the origins of their unsavory comments, they do not reect any personal endorsement of prejudice or derogatory stereotypes. To judge by the urry of apologies that typically follow such incidents, it seems reasonable to infer that the people involved would have wished that they could have stopped themselves from making the remarks they made, not only because it landed them in hot water, but presumably also because it threatened their identities as civilized, unbigoted persons.
