At the root of racism is the fact of prejudice. Derived from the Latin noun, pracejudicium, meaning judgment based on prior decision, the term prejudice in English took on the idea of prejudgment with the feeling-tone of aversion or hostility. Applied to race,than, prejudice means aversion for an individual or group, predicated upon inadequate knowledge. Usually, a whole group is categorized in terms of a few ideas about one of its members. Such overcategorization, as professor Gordon All port observes, is perhaps the commonest trick of the mind.