Perpetuating Prejudice

Prejudice: a preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience.

"prejudice against people from different backgrounds"

Bigotry: intolerance toward those who hold different opinions from oneself.

"The difficulties of combating prejudice and bigotry"

Racist: a person who shows or feels discrimination or prejudice against people of other races, or who believes that a particular race is superior to another.

"the comments have led to her being called a racist"

Sexist: characterized by or showing prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex.

Discrimination: the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex

There have been many protests recently in cities around the United States. Most of these are in response to a brutal and unnecessary killing of an African American man by a police officer during his arrest for a crime.

The rally call of “Black Lives Matter” has been promulgated by the many outraged citizens of all races who know that this killing was horrendous and believe that it was a direct result of the man being ‘black’. It may have been. It may not have been. We will never truly know what was in the mind of the police officer at that particular time and place.

Racism, discrimination, sexism, and bigotry are types of prejudice against an entire group of people for their differences and often based on the actions of some.

During these protests, there was a photograph on Facebook of an adult, identified as the parent, and a young child holding signs that said: “‘F’ Police” and they didn’t just use the letter. The child in the photo appeared to be six or seven years of age. There were other signs using the ‘F’ word aimed at specific people and groups.

It is not known if these protesters were relatives or friends of the man who was killed or if they were just angry because of the inhumanity of the situation. Their anger may have been completely justified. They were protesting prejudice, bigotry, and racism. And yet, they were perpetuating prejudice against a group, the police, based on the actions of some.

The parent was teaching the child that it is ok to judge and hate an entire group of people based on experience with a few, or no actual experience at all.

That same week, a local woman was yelled at while in her car, that she had ‘white privilege’. This woman was completely taken aback. As a child, her family was not well off. She joined the military to try to make something of her life and now, as a middle-aged woman with physical problems, she cleaned other people’s houses for a living. The young men who were yelling at her were prejudiced. They judged her by the color of her skin.

Prejudice, bigotry, racism, sexism, and discrimination are not limited to just one race, one sex, one color, one chosen career, one age, or one anything. When two people are vying for a job and one is chosen, not because they are the best, but because of one of the above listed ‘isms’, that is wrong. That is perpetuating prejudice.

Humankind will never overcome prejudice by substituting another type in its place. Parental responsibility, community, and government responsibility is to teach each generation that labeling any person or group of people because they are different from us, hold different opinions, are different races, religion, or sex, is unacceptable.

Each of us should be evaluated based on our own actions and our own lives. We cannot say that all police are bad because we have had or been told about bad experiences with some. We cannot say that all white people have privilege just because some of them do. We cannot stereotype a group of people based on anything about an individual or even several individuals. We must stop tagging entire groups, races, sexes, or religions as ignorant, bad drivers, thugs, terrorists, gangsters, or deplorable.

If we truly want prejudice, bigotry, racism, sexism, and discrimination to go away, we must decide how we feel, related to only the actions or beliefs of the individual, not the group. And we must not blame what happens to us, on our membership in a group, and start taking responsibility for our actions. Only then will we all be one people.