Prejudice

I’m prejudice.

I find it hard to admit it and have only just come to the realization of this fact.

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Three times this week I’ve done something prejudice, each time with good intent and not conscious of what I’d done but still each one is there and something I find myself cringing from the memory of.

We tend to think of prejudice as some form of hate or purposeful destruction but it was only with reading a comment on the internet that I realised it’s simpler than that – prejudice is seeing one aspect of someone else and making an assumption based on that with the underlying impact that, that makes you feel somehow superior to them in some way. In my case it was their disabilities which made me feel they needed assistance and that I had a superior position to be able to offer that. Looking back I came across as an idiot and it was only that they knew me and that my intent was good which left me with only my own conscience berating me.

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I’m lucky in that I’m not going to be prejudiced against very often if at all but for others such things happen every day with malicious intent and to the scale that they become isms ( racism, sexism etc.. ). But being prejudice isn’t something limited to a straight white man, it’s something we can all so easily fall into the trap of.

Now I’m starting to wonder if we’re really fixing this problem. We fix racism by dealing with people’s actions against different races, and we deal with sexism by dealing with our different actions against different genders. I could go on but the point is that if all we’re doing is dealing with our reactions because this is an issue which has finally come to light after centuries of abuse and pain, then have we really learned or are we just following the trend?

Does it count to say, “I wont be racist against them” when we’re still making assumptions? We just make them differently rather than stop making them so have we really then dealt with that particular issue or just altered it so it doesn’t notice?

I’m starting to wonder if we really need to learn to look at our assumptions from moment to moment so that we can get to a point one day when we’re aiming to nip hate in the bud before it can grow from our assumptions of difference and superiority into something even worse