Kendall,
    There is also a psychological defense mechanism known as identification
with the aggressor.  This happens when a person who has been subjected to
prejudice or oppression develops the belief that the bad things which his
oppressors say about him are true and that the oppressive conditions to
which he is subjected are justified and appropriate. Thus, the man you know
may be prejudiced against other people with disabilities because he has been
subjected to so much disability based discrimination himself that he now
believes that he and other people with disabilities are inferior and deserve
to be treated accordingly.
Susan
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kendall D. Corbett" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, April 10, 2003 12:55 PM
Subject: PWD's prejudiced against other PWD's


> I've got kind of a strange question that I thought Bobby, as a retired
> academician, might have the best handle on, but that others might have
> an interest in as well;  Is there information available about people
> within a minority group expressing prejudice against other members of
> that minority group, or a smaller subset within that group?  The
> situation I've encountered is a person with CP and some cognitive
> challenges explicitly expressing prejudice against other people with
> physical and/or cognitive disabilities that he interacts with.  This
> persons cognitive issues are mild enough that he can reason, but it just
> floored me when he expressed such obvious prejudice against others who
> were not much different than himself.
>
> Kendall Corbett
> [log in to unmask]