Reply To: Prejudice and Discrimination

[Anonymous]

I think the same way as others here. We are not born with stereotypes. We aquire them as our language from where we are – our family, primary school, playmates – especially when kids. Then when older we dive into web that it’s full of racist, sexist, homophobic and even worse content. We read, we learn. Our brains constructs some kind of boxes. One for “a typical blond” that we know from jokes told by our uncle, one for “a typical gay” that we know from ana read in web, one for “a typical catholic devotee” that we know because one taught us in school. And then we just tag. It’s just so much easier for ours cognitive system to have and use these boxes.
Prejucide is related to discrimination. Discrimination is “the next step” od prejucide that can be taken when suitable circustamces appear, for example when a black man bumps us on the street by accudent. Nowadays I wouldn’t scream at him “you nigga” or something like that because I know a lot of black people and my cognitive representation of “a black man” is complex, elaborated and I know (from my expeirence that I’ve also learnt) that this black man is equal to me. I’m aware of it.