Reply To: Prejudice and Discrimination

[Anonymous]

I believe that prejudice is something that we learn, kids don’t mind colour of the skin or gender of their playmates. As kids grow up they observe behaviour of “wiser” older people and adapt. Prejudice may be linked to discrimination in a way that negative stereotypes help us paint a picture of another person and no matter if it’s accurate or not it lets us pick an approach toward that person. The easiest example would be old people from cotton plantations areas, maybe not all but many would just assume that some people are better than others just because of colour of their skin, maybe even believe that some are less human. Personally I’m curious how people perceive racists jokes. Is it always wrong to joke about such matters? Maybe it’s fine if you “crack” such a joke when affected party isn’t listening?