Prejudice is Stunting Our Growth

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Prejudice is a problem that has plagued humanity ever since the beginning of time and is a phenomenon that occurs very often in the lives of everyone on the planet. By definition, it is any preconceived opinion about a given person or group of persons in society.  When left uncontrolled, it can develop into more extreme xenophobic expressions such as racism, sexism, classism, nationalism, tribalism, religious intolerance and homophobia. Many of the wars in humanity’s history have grown out of some form of prejudice.

Prejudices are generally born out of ignorance on the part of those who are evaluating another person or group of persons. When someone does not know much about a given group of individuals, he or she begins to create preconceived notions about that group of individuals without basing them on any valid reasons. These notions may be based on how a group of individuals look, speak or dress. Because one does not know more than what they see about a group of individuals, many generalizations are created and then converted into false beliefs about these individuals.

Once a prejudice about a certain group of individuals is formed, it can prove to be very hazardous if it is not replaced by a more accurate conception about that group of people. If a prejudice remains in the mind of someone for a great deal of time, it can grow into something worse and, consequently, something almost impossible to change. What makes it even more hazardous is that these prejudices can easily be passed on to other people such as friends, family members, and children. Parents who carry prejudices about groups of people in society pass them on to their children who grow up believing them simply because their parents implied that it was true. When this happens, the prejudices usually turn into something more serious such as racism.

Prejudices can present themselves in many different shapes and forms. A person may have preconceived notions that range from one person to half of the human population. One may have prejudices towards certain races, cultures, nationalities, people of certain political orientations as well as sexual orientations and so on. Those are the prejudices that are very common but there are many that people do not consider prejudices or that they do not even consider when thinking of prejudice. Prejudice towards age, for example, is one of them. Many young people have various generalized notions about old people and vice versa because they do not know enough about each other. Although many people do not consider this to be a serious prejudice, it is still a one that can cause disunity between two groups of people. In more serious cases, prejudices have caused racial, religious and political conflict between groups of people, many of which have escalated to wars. Once a certain belief about a group of human beings is conceived, it spreads like wildfire and creates animosity and hatred between people. Sadly, prejudice create barriers between people before they even have a chance to learn more about each other.

Many agree that the time has come for humanity to leave behind its stages of childhood and adolescence, along with their immature traits, and step into the long-awaited stage of adulthood. However, as long as we continue to allow ourselves to fall victim to childlike behavior such as prejudice, we will only delay this process and humanity will continue to suffer from strife. It is time to realize that the peace and security of the world is not achieved by leaders shaking hands and signing treaties, but rather by the masses of humanity respecting and embracing each other in all our diverse forms.

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