Prejudices!

Prejudices! These are ideas and opinions that people have developed about certain groups, such as men, women, and people with a different skin colour or religion. An unpleasant experience with one person from a certain group can make us prejudiced against the whole group and against all the individual people in that group.

Prejudice is an unfounded and often negative defiance toward members of a group. It has a strong influence on how people behave and interact with others, particularly with those who are different from them. Sometimes, internalized prejudices surface without them aware.

Common features of prejudice include negative feelings, stereotyped beliefs, and a tendency to discriminate against members of a group. In society, we often see prejudices toward a group based on race, sex, religion, culture, and more. Some of the most well-known types of prejudice include: racism, sexism, ageism, classism, homophobia, nationalism, religious prejudice, and xenophobia.

Prejudice spread on a large scale can become a hate speech. Prejudice are common mental mistakes. In other words, we depend upon our ability to place people, ideas, and objects into different categories in order to make the world simpler and easier to understand. By so doing we derogate a group of people. A devastating effect of such can be attributed to the Rwandan genocide.

Negative prejudices that are common in a society can cause tension between groups. Or result in groups of people being discriminated against or treated unequally on the basis of, their background, skin colour, or religion.

Dealing with prejudice whether its micro aggressions, bias, or discrimination is physically and psychologically demanding. It is never your responsibility to educate someone who is hateful or discriminatory toward you.

Combating prejudice is no easy task. Stay tuned on the website for a subsequent post on how to protect yourself and your loved ones.