Question

[tzikeh]

Is there an official term for the phenomenon of liking the single person because you know them, but not liking that "kind" of person as a whole? "Joe's gay, but he's a good guy. Still, those homosexuals are a problem." Or the "My neighbors are really kind to us, *even though* they're black."

I'm looking for a existing term or phrase along the lines of "uncanny valley", "mob mentality", "folie a deux", etc. Not that these phrases are close to what I mean -- more that this is the kind of description of this type of thinking I'm looking for.

ETA - Please continue to bring the funny, for lo my day sucketh and I need it *badly*, but I really am looking for an answer. So if someone knows of one, please help!

Comments

[buddleia.livejournal.com]

'Being a moron syndrome'

*hides*

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Awesome, yet entirely unusable in a paper for school. :D

[apathocles.livejournal.com]

Completely OT, but your icon is making me smile a whole lot. :D

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Thanks! That was why I made it. :)

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

I think of it as "some of my best friends are ..."

[brak666.livejournal.com]

White?

[buddleia.livejournal.com]

Inability to follow a concept through to its logical conclusion?
Erm, self-perceived selective racism/homophobia/whatever (sorry, I totally made that one up)?

[heresluck]

I've heard it referred to as "exceptionalism," which makes a fair amount of intuitive sense, but have no idea how official the term would be considered.

[elynross.livejournal.com]

I've mostly heard this term in reference to the idea that something/country/person/ideology is better than/superior/exceptional, and therefore is basically outside of the rules.

[elynross.livejournal.com]

to clarify: which therefore might be the term in question, applied to individuals, ie, this specific example of whatever broader area you're addressing is outside the "rule" of bigotry against the wider area.

[suaine.livejournal.com]

I know it, just... give me a couple of minutes to find it in my social psych textbook.

[iko.livejournal.com]

"Familiarity"?
(Although they do say that familiarity breeds contempt...)

I like heresluck's answer of "exceptionalism".

Exception to the rule

[taverymate.livejournal.com]

There may be a specific social psychology term for it, but the phrase that I've always used and heard is simply "exception to the rule" - especially when it concerns stereotypes.

[the-shoshanna.livejournal.com]

"Exceptionalism" sounds like it's best, but in second place might be a version of "tokenism." Tokenism isn't quite the same thing, but it's related.

If you want to use a phrase, you could try a variation on "the 'credit to his race' syndrome," maybe?

I have no funny to bring on this particular subject, but I can say that the phrase "two-beer queer" never fails to make me giggle. FWIW.

[vass]

Exceptionism? Hypocrisy? Cognitive dissonance? Objectification? Splitting? Denial?

I remember reading once (I think maybe in Leni Yahil's Shoah?) that Hitler criticised this attitude in some of his followers: he noted that they'd condemn Jews in general, but each would have one or two Jewish friends who were 'my Jews'. Hitler, obviously, was exhorting them to condemn those Jewish friends along with all the others. It kind of terrifies me to look at it from the other side like that: to see that they (or at least Hitler) could see that that was what they were doing.

Question for clarification: X is a member of group A, Y is a member of group B. X is prejudiced against group B. Y is X's friend. Do you mean...
1. the thing where X sees Y as being really 'just like X', i.e. a member of group A, except for the inconvenient and distasteful fact that Y is actually a member of group B? Or
2. the thing where X fully recognises that Y is a member of group B, except that *this* group B member is X's friend?

i.e. The parents of Ashley X, a girl with cerebral palsy, put her through a combined breast reduction and hysterectomy so that she would remain physically small and childlike, and call her their 'Pillow Angel'. That would the second category - they love her the way she is, but in a way that excludes them seeing her as a real person. I don't know what that's called, but it's probably been discussed most by activists for racial equality, disability rights, feminism, gender rights, etc. I think. Maybe.

The first category would be how certain Republicans treat their Log Cabin fellows: they manage to see their gay friends as Like Us by pretending the parts of them that they would classify as Not Like Us aren't there. I dont' know what that's called either, but psychoanalysis probably has a name for it.

[jackiekjono.livejournal.com]

e. The parents of Ashley X, a girl with cerebral palsy, put her through a combined breast reduction and hysterectomy so that she would remain physically small and childlike, and call her their 'Pillow Angel'.

Dear God!

Please tell me that is a fictional example. Please?

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry to say that it isn't.

[jackiekjono.livejournal.com]

It really ticks me off when people rearrange their fellow human beings to make them easier to deal with.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the whole thing is pretty ghastly.

[greywingnut.livejournal.com]

The phrase that immediately sprung to my mind was "one of the good ones." I tried to verify the officialness of this term with a quick web search, but I could not.

[pocketmouse]

...All I can think of is 'double standard.'

[deejay.livejournal.com]

From the mists of time, what I recall from my Social Studies is the word "exceptionalism" -- AKA, as my very cool professor deemed it at the time, regarding certain (more blatant) instances, "collective poopy brain syndrome"....

[shayheyred.livejournal.com]

In earlier, coarser times, that would be known as the "credit to his race" comment, as in "Our maid's son is a lovely young man who went to college, and is going to be a doctor. He's a real credit to his race."

[iseult-variante.livejournal.com]

According to the social psych prof that I ran into today, it's "the exceptional case effect/phenomenon". It is tangentially related to the contact hypothesis, which is what all of us grad students kept remembering. ;)