Do you actually think that, or do you just feel that you should?

In My Humble Opinion
1

This is something that’s been knocking around in my head for a while but I’ll do my best to present it as a cogent question.

In the privacy of your own head you can be as bigoted and hateful as you wish, no-one can stop you. Most of us (westerners from developed countries, obviously not all human beings), I believe, aren’t though and generally fall in line with the general consensus of what is acceptable to think. Other races/nationalities are equal, the genders are/should be equal, gays should have equality, violence isn’t the solution etc. However I’m willing to bet that for all of us there is at least one area where we don’t fall in line with the general consensus of acceptability - maybe we think that Jews really do run the world in an international cabal, maybe we think that Africans are so poor because they’re fundamentally lazy, maybe we think women are generally more irrational and impulsive than men, maybe we think that gays are alright enough but, you know, it’s not normal though is it? To quote Avenue Q, “everyone’s a little bit racist”, for example - I contend we all harbour some kind of prejudice (in the proper sense of the word) or maybe antipathy towards some group of people based on their race.

Where this gets interesting is when we experience cognitive dissonance between what we do think, and what we believe we should think. That realisation that when you thought this morning whilst in your car “fucking women drivers, why can’t they get it together?” you were making a sexist remark, and you don’t consider yourself sexist or indeed wish to be.

The final stage of this is saying or acting as others expect us to so that we can deny to ourselves that we really hold views that we know we shouldn’t, or (again) think we shouldn’t. Examples include men going on about how much they respect women, white people declaring their love of the rich cultural heritage of [insert impoverished third world country they would never dream of living in here], straight people cheering for gay marriage whilst doing their best not to think about two men having sex etc.

So my question is how much do you, reader, find yourself doing this? I’m not asking for specifics particularly or confessions of your own prejudices, more a discussion of this phenomenon. Does it affect a lot of us? Is it just me? (:)), and is this a feature of living in a multicultural, pluralistic world where it is more usual to be unlike one another and for no one specific group to be able to claim to be the “right” group on any subject?

For me, I know that I definitely have views about others which I accept are sometimes prejudicial. Ultimately, however, as someone who puts a great deal of emphasis on the primacy of the individual I believe people must be treated as they are, not for which box they happen to be in. It’s what you do, not what you are, that matters to me.

Anyone else?

2

Sort of, but in some cases, I don’t think there’s a choice. Sexual preference, for example. My expressed position is that people should do what they feel is right for them (as long as everyone involved is consenting, etc).

In private, though, I probably don’t want to know the details of how people act upon what they feel is right for them, but I think that’s fairly natural. I don’t care what people do, I just don’t necessarily want to watch.

3

Rethought my response.

4

I must admit, there were some environmental factors growing up that made me somewhat prejudiced. I’m no longer in that environment so I know that my first gut reaction to people or actions are wrong, but it’s still habitual.

I have a friend that moved back here from South Carolina, and even though she only lived there a few years she now hates blacks. She sees them as lazy and worthless, thanks to a racist (now-ex)boyfriend and her being naive. She knows it’s wrong, and now that she’s out of there is trying to get over it and see them like the normal human beings they are.

5

I’m sure there’s some tribal, territorial lizard part of our brain that reacts to people who we see as “different” on some level. It probably served us well back when the best way to respond to a threat was to lob spears and rocks at it. Suppressing that bit when it comes up and acting rationally rather than listening to its irrational “Ah! Different! Throw spears at it!” voice doesn’t make us hypocritical, it makes us civilized.

6

Interesting question.

I never thought a lot about homosexuality when I was younger. My mom had some male friends that were gay and I liked them, but I was too young to think about what it really meant to be gay.
Then the bible was read to me every night for years and I became uncomfortable about the thought of two men having a sexual relationship. The thought of two women together didn’t bother me though. Stupid, I know.

Then in my mid 20’s, AIDS came along. Much to my embarrassment, I can recall thinking that God was showing them the error of their ways. Until the first person that wasn’t gay got sick. This caused me some mental pain and forced me to examine the issue more closely. I struggled with it for a long time. It wasn’t until I decided that the bible was a bunch of nonsense that I made any progress towards ridding myself of the conflict I felt.

So, although I never felt any hatred towards gay people, I much prefer where I am today. I have no doubt that being gay is not a choice, nor is it evil or an abomination. I fully support marriage equality. I watched broke back mountain with no discomfort!

On the other hand, when my mom was in ICU one time, there was a HMONG family that had a relative there also who was not doing well. They behaved so strangely that I found them really odd. I’d never seen a Hmong before. And there were a lot of them in that town. The more I heard about these folks, the odder I found them. I wouldn’t say I hated them, but I didn’t like them. So I set out to disabuse myself of my icky thoughts and purposely hired a young man from that culture so I could learn. The little shit stole from us for months before he was caught and I have never had another opportunity to get to know someone from this culture. So I admit to some lingering not good feelings about the people of this community. BUT, I also fight these feelings because intellectually, I know better than to dislike a group of people over the actions of one or a few or whatever.

7

The hardest part is when your prejudice is actually true. Am I wrong for assuming a poor black person doesn’t have a father in his life? Am I wrong for assuming the landscaper doesn’t have a college degree? Am I wrong for assuming my taxi driver is Somali? I have no problem suppressing my gut feelings about a person, but when my presumptions are also supported by statistics, it’s hard to intellectually deny that.

Separately, I don’t see anything contradictory about this: “straight people cheering for gay marriage whilst doing their best not to think about two men having sex.” Why on Earth would I want to imagine such a thing?! :: pukey smiley::

8

A lot of times, I REALLY don’t care about someone else’s problems, but I know I’m supposed to. Like when it’s a huge tragedy (family death or such). And so I do my best to sound sympathetic while they talk about their dad’s funeral or their cousins cancer diagnosis. Yes, it’s callous and cold of me to not care, but I know that I’m at least making an effort to do right.

When hurricane Charley resulted in my friends having to stay at my place for a week, I was just about to scream with annoyance. But everytime I started to feel that way, I reminded myself that they had it worse and at least I had my own room to retreat to and a bed to sleep on instead of a communal living room and a sleeping bag on the floor.

I won’t get into cultural prejudices except to say that while I don’t like to imagine any of the gay guys I know having sex, I also hate to think of my straight friends getting it on. So It’s hardly a double standard.

9

I do believe a lot of unflattering things about certain groups. A lot of those things are based on my own limited experience with them. I don’t ever, ever express these sentiments, though.

10

Yes you are wrong. You are assuming something about an individual case based on some uncited statistics. It is very easy to intellectually deny what you are saying, because there is no other possible conclusion unless you have some statistics to show 100% of the people you describe fall into these categories.

11

Yes, I have prejudices. I try to be as aware of them as humanly possible so that they do not affect my behavior or treatment of others. I despise prejudice, but a huge part of combating it is recognizing it in myself.

12

I disagree. Why is it wrong to assume that his landscaper doesn’t have a college degree? Should I assume that my Mexican landscaper is a U.S. citizen against all evidence to the contrary, and if so, what is the benefit of that? As long as I treat him with the same respect that I treat everyone else, what’s the damage?

I guess I don’t understand what the advantage is to anyone for me to assume that my landscaper is an American born, college-educated fellow, when based on everything I’ve learned about the landscaping crews in my area points to that not being the case.

We assume things about people we don’t know every day; we do this based on the collective knowledge we have gathered about society througout our lives. I don’t think what we believe about a person’s situation is harmful, but how we act toward that person.

13

Because I know a landscaper with a college degree. Therefore I can’t assume to know that any one landscaper does not have a college degree. And you shouldn’t assume that anyone is a Mexican if you don’t know, and even if you do know you shouldn’t assume that person is or is not an American citizen. Knowing that some A are B doesn’t mean that all A are B, and knowing that some A are not B doesn’t mean that all A are not B either.

14

I have several friends belonging to [loose racial classification]. From them, I have learned to distinguish [subcategories within loose racial classification]. These friends are pretty racist about [subcategories within loose racial classification] and [completely unrelated loose racial classification]. Therefore I have learned to assume that people belonging to [their subcategory within loose racial classification] are racists. :smack:

I know, I know.

15

  1. I do know he is Mexican.

  2. “you shouldn’t assume that person is or is not an American citizen”. Quoting you. Is or is not? So you don’t assume anything about his citizenship? Why is it wrong of me to assume he is not a citizen? I think that in an effort to appear as if we treat everyone equally, some people go a bit overboard.

The guy down the street, Antonio, works in a pizza place. He makes pretty good Italian food. He looks Italian. I don’t know his nationality, but I assume he’s Italian. Explain to me why it’s wrong of me to think that.

16

Why on earth do you have to make an assumption about someone’s citizenship other than to feed your own prejudice?

Because you don’t know. You could assume based on the information that Antonio is likely to have an Italian ancestry, but since you don’t know, why do you have to assume anything about Antonio in particular?

17

Because assumptions are how you navigate the world. You’re acting like the “makes an ass of you and me” cliche is actually true. You’re acting like we should just not assume anything about anyone ever. That’s stupid.

18

Agreed.

I am a flawed human. That manifests in all kinds of flawed ways - prejudices, cowardice, arrogance - the whole shooting match.

I see that my job in life is to do what I can to stop, step back, decide how I *want *to behave/be perceived, and do what I can to make that choice when I can.

Sometimes I don’t stop and step back.
Sometimes I stop and step back, but still make a choice I will regret later.
Sometimes I stop and step back, do the better thing, but don’t feel much different in my deepest gut
Sometimes, over time, I find that the better decision starts to come more naturally and my mindset seems to have changed, too…

This is the stuff of basic lifework, yes?

19

You must get lost a lot. You seem to navigate by looking at irrelevant factors. How does the assumption about a person’s parentage or citizenship help you get to? What is stupid is making assumptions when none are necessary, or when there is a necessity to know something, relying on the assumptions when the facts are available. If you want to make irrational decisions, it’s a free country, do what you want. But you sound like the type of person whose irrational decisions lead to failure, which you then blame on others. The cliche is not true, because your assumptions don’t make an ass out of me.

20

So what do you do when the facts aren’t available, but you need them?

I’d post a longer reply but I’ve got to get this hamburger to the lab before I eat it. Gotta test it for pathogens. I mean, I saw it being thoroughly cooked on the grill, I saw the cook’s gloves, and I’ve had this same meal dozens of times previously without getting sick, but I can’t be sure that this burger won’t kill me. I wouldn’t want to assume that the cook didn’t wipe her ass with her gloves on or that the meat wasn’t rubbed down with raw chicken after it was cooked.

And I still have to arrange for secondary transportation to the lab because I just can’t assume that my car didn’t leak all its fuel on the ground after I parked it this morning.

Be back later…