Another way that we look at people making a pre-judgment would be stereotyping. Stereotyping is probably the most common, and most the time we don’t even realize we are doing it. Let’s go back to the example of the homeless guy at the light. Why do people lock their door? The answer is to protect themselves from the homeless. Probably somewhere years ago a homeless guy opened the car door of an unsuspecting women and caused her harm. Now every time we see a homeless guy asking for money we lock our door because of what has become the stereo typical action of a homeless person. Another example would be that of a rich white kid, but not one of how he sees the world. This one I can speak from personal experience. My family is not exactly hurting for money, but I don’t go around flaunting it in people’s faces. This is because I have learned that the second people find out your family has money they immediately think in two ways, one they try to become your best friend and want you to buy them things, or two they look at you as a stuck up rich kid who gets whatever they want. Even though my family is a down to earth family that still cuts our own grass, doesn’t have a maid, and drives a basic car, we are stereotyped as being snobby and stuck up. If we walk into a restaurant where people don’t know us but know who we are, you will see the people begin to snicker and talk among themselves looking at us and pointing a sly little finger. Stereotyping can be one of the most hurtful kinds of prejudice because it is not based on what I have done, but what people that I most likely don’t even know presume. People should get to know the person and not rely on a profile of that kind of person.
The way people look at my family as being snobbish should not be confused with structural prejudice. Structural prejudice is where a whole group is looked at. This is when you look at all poor people as being trashy and dirty. You based your pre-judgment on a group based on their position in our social structure. A good example would be where someone is interviewed for a job and is perfect for the job, but after looking at where they live and their family income you see that they fall below the poverty line and don’t hire them because you simply do not want poor people working for you. This prejudice can most likely be traced back to England in the Middle Ages with the class system. Then when you where born into a class then that was all you could be for the rest of your life. If you were a simple peasant then you would never be allowed to move up in the class system.
One of the more common prejudices among children is the in out group. We all remember the days of Junior High where you either had the cool new shoes or you were not cool. You were either in or you were out. Children can relate to this since it is the only prejudice that does not need real world interaction to perform. What that means is that the children do not have to think or associate it to anything in society, you either have the cool shoes or you don’t. This may the simplest but it can be just a detrimental to a child’s adult life as any others. Look at Columbine and other school shootings, the kids with the guns were always in the group that was not the so called “in” group, and every time their targets were the kids who were the so called “in” group. The relationship to what group you fit into during junior high and high school does not end at graduation. It affects the rest of your life. Look at the so called in and out groups of the nerds and the jocks. These are labels that usually stay with the people for the rest of their lives. Sometimes this is a prejudice that has a light at the end of the tunnel. Usually the so called nerds that study all the time are the ones that go on to get the good jobs while the once mighty jocks end up working at Burger King with a G.E.D.
All four prejudices are mean, rude and stupid. All four prejudices are hard things to get rid of. Each of us is a little prejudiced in some way and probably don’t even realize we are prejudice most the time. This is because to us it seems right. It is this sense of being right that makes it almost impossible to break. The only way that I can imagine breaking the vicious cycle is to switch roles. The reason this makes sense to me is because I am not prejudiced against upper class white people, but sometimes I am to poor black people by labeling them a drug dealer or gang member. I should try to live the life a poor black teenager trying to grow up in the ghetto, and living from pay check to pay check. After that I would understand that life is not as easy as it seems. The next action that needs to be performed to break the cycle is acknowledgement. I know that sometimes I am prejudiced by labeling people, and I am trying to change that. Hopefully I will become a better person in the end.
Over all, prejudice is something that will be in the world for the rest of our lives. Prejudice is sometimes based on the fact that you have something and I don’t, but I want what you have and I want you to give it to me. This is a natural human response. Communism in theory would eradicate this need since everybody would have the same thing, but like the old U.S.S.R. the people at the top always seem to have more and the people at the bottom all want to be on top. This basic human need has formed a prejudice that is hard to break. Everyday though I put my pants on just like you do, it is this simple idea that I have come to look at every person as being equal. This is a small idea but big step in creating a world without prejudice.
