Prejudice

Prejudice is simply defined as a “prejudgment”, “an unjustifiable (and usually negative) attitude toward a group and it’s members. Prejudice generally involves stereotyped beliefs, negative feelings, and a predisposition to discriminatory action” (Exploring Psychology 545). I know all about prejudice, my family and I deal with it all the time. I grew up in a family that’s culturally diverse, by this I mean I have people of different race, gender, sexual orientation, and mental capabilities in my family. When we go out people assume they know us before meeting us. Ignorance is a word I have for them, because I know if they stare, they don’t understand. According to our textbook, “Exploring Psychology,” it states that prejudice arises from “inequality, social divisions, and emotional scapegoating“ (545). Prejudice is used throughout the world in different ways. Whether it’s dating, education, neighborhoods, or even work environments, point is it’s everywhere whether we ignore it or not.

Throughout our society we’ve divided genders into rules. Like women cook, clean, and shop, while men fix, work, and watch sports. “Gender inequality and discrimination persist too. Despite gender equality in intelligence scores, people tend to perceive their fathers as more intelligent than their mothers” (Exploring Psychology 546). Men are perceived as the dominant, while women remain the recessive, because they seem to be the weaker sex. In some countries women get paid less than men for the same jobs. When it comes to car insurance men are charged more because statistics say that more men get in accidents than women. Gender can make us or break us when it comes to the real world obstacles, it’s just up to us to use them.

Our world also have social inequalities, this is when people judge others by how much they make or from the environment they grew up in, resulting in discrimination and increasing prejudice. “Being a victim of discrimination can produce either self-blame or anger. Both reactions may create new grounds for prejudice through the classic blame-the-victimdynamic” (Exploring Psychology 548). This means that people in the ghetto can learn to be prejudice against others who are poor or even just hanging in that group to be gang members. Just assuming they know their type of people. I even remember a time in PE that we had a girl who was mentally retarded playing basketball and when she had the ball people would let her just run around and shoot, because they felt bad for her. So one day I took the ball and people labeled me as being rude, but I stood up to them and said, “We’re playing basketball, she’s a person not a dog. Why should we be treating her any different than you and I?” when I said that, she was happy, she told me I was her best friend, because she knew I understood. So maybe it’s not about the person, but the level of understanding a person that can segregate us.