Some Thoughts on Prejudice

In today’s society, we face prejudice every day in many forms. Most people in today’s society have either been victims of prejudice or are guilty of exhibiting prejudice towards others.

Prejudice is when we have a preconceived opinion about someone or a group of people that is formed without knowledge, or even a real understanding about them.

Prejudice is an opinion in which is not based on any reasoning, and may cause harm. Prejudice can be seen just about anywhere, and it affects our daily lives. There are many different ways a person can show prejudice beliefs, but why do they believe things they have never experience? Some may say it’s something personal with one’s self that causes prejudice thoughts, or some may think it their surroundings contribute as a motive.

Jonathan Rauch, while making it obvious that prejudice is one of the worst things about society today, he explains that it lies within us all. It is in fact, inherent. To believe that someone is prejudice, means you’re prejudice. There’s no escaping it. He starts off his piece by addressing

I was born and raised in Europe. I have learned from my history books that there were freedom and equality in the United States. I learned that, among many other rights, people enjoy freedom of religion and freedom of speech - the rights that were envied by millions of people of the Eastern Block countries.

In this modern world, prejudice is still a universal problem we still have yet to overcome. Although it is true that our society is much less prejudiced than it was 40-50 years ago, we are still struggling to create racial harmony in a world that is so diverse in terms of racial group, sexual orientations, ethnicity, nationality, religions, and so on. I think the core of prejudice comes from stereotyping, which is the generalization of motives, characteristics, or behavior to an entire group of people. In the world where media propaganda is ubiquitous, often times most stereotypes are not formed on valid experiences, instead they are based on images publicized by the mass media, or even created within our heads after seeing and hearing examples from many different sources, like movies, or even hearsay. Stereotyping is more powerful than we think, because it allows those false pictures to control our thinking that leads us to assign uniform characteristics to any person in a group, without consideration of the actual difference between members of that particular group.

Any Americans pretend that the days of racism are far behind; however it is clear that institutional racism still exists in this country. One way of viewing this institutional racism is looking at our nation’s prison system and how the incarceration rates are skewed towards African American men. The reasons for the incarceration rate disparity are argued and different between races, but history points out and starts to show the reason of why the disparity began. Families and children of the incarcerated are adversely affected due to the discrimination as well as the discrimination against African American students and their likelihood of going to prison compared to the white student. African American women are also affected by the discrimination in the incarceration rate. Many white Americans don’t see how racism affects incarceration rates, and that African Americans are more likely to face discrimination from the police as well as being falsely arrested. Many would argue that the reason why the incarceration rate for African Americans is sustainably higher compared to white American is because of economic situations, and because of past arrest patterns. While it is true that the economic opportunity someone has will affect their decisions, this argument doesn’t fully explain the real reason of why the rates are higher. To fully understand the reason why one must look back on America’s

As Maya Angelou once said, “Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible.” Prejudice is an issue our society face today that has been continued from the past. Prejudice is a negative attitude or an unfavorable opinion that one has against another formed without reason nor knowledge. There are many types of prejudice including racism, sexism, classism, nationalism and many more. However, they all induce discrimination and stereotyping.

The psychological perspectives concerning prejudice is assuming someone or something is a certain way before actually knowing and having facts. The sociology book gives a few examples of theories on prejudice. It is often to hear an assumption rather than the facts when something or someone is referenced. I believe people judge to quickly. Anymore we are so focused on first impressions we tend to forget who we are. Also, it is typical to try something out once and if you were not pleased we often not give it a second chance.

Fat people are funny. If you wear Crocs means that you are a complete dork. If you are pretty, you are smart, and if you are ugly you are stupid. Little old ladies that have a lot of cats are nice. These are examples of prejudice. It is in schools, on the radio, and on TV. Prejudice is what we think of people or things just because other people look like or act like that. Prejudice is a preconceived idea that is in no way based on a reason or actual experience or evidence. Prejudice is a major problem for many people in the United States and many other places in the world, but the more you know about prejudice, the easier it is to identify and stop it.

Prejudice is a large problem in today’s society. Prejudice is having a preconceived opinion not based on reason or fact. Prejudice is all around us and is extremely prevalent daily lives. Because of bias, people are often judged, mistreated, hurt, and abused unfairly. Prejudice is such a widespread problem in society that many people have accepted, and even encouraged it because of its many examples in history, literature, and current events.

Prejudice and ignorance are two of the most prominent ills of our society today. The way gay soldiers are treated today is no exception. Many have been forced to resign due to their sexual orientation, which has little or nothing to do with their ability as soldiers. Most members of our armed forces have no experience in relating to gay people, resulting in a fear that has caused pain to many people, both homosexual and heterosexual. In 2010, Obama put this country into place when he signed the, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act of 2010”. Even though this was signed, it is still a very heated debate within the government and this society. People should not have to worry about being gay when they sign up to protect their country. They also should not be judged on the basis of their sexuality.

Prejudice is a biased view of people of a different culture or race.Prejudice is deeply rooted in human nature, and lack of interaction between different racial groups also contributes to prejudice. Also,society’s prejudice against a certain group of individuals will cause other people to feel the same way.

The social and moral aspects of prejudice are explored within the studied texts through the intolerance for other opinions. Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird and Jeremy Stanford’s article Booing Adam Goodes: are we even aware we’re racists? magnify the different aspects of prejudice through different perspectives. The composers use the concepts of innocence, injustice and relationships to explore the different aspects of prejudice. The discrimination brought to surface within the texts reveals that prejudice is destructive to humanity.

Prejudice is the negative attitude based on false generalizations about members of different racial and ethnic groups. From prejudice, discrimination is born. We all are guilty of discriminating other people, but one can only speculate the factors that bring about this hatred towards one another. Although a single cause cannot account for the presence of racism, factors such as socialization, self-justification, and competition are a few human attributes that lead to acts of racial discrimination.