According to Wikipedia.org, prejudice is a prejudgment, an assumption made about someone or something before having adequate knowledge to be able to do so with guaranteed accuracy. Prejudice is most commonly used to refer to a preconceived judgment toward people or a person because of race, social class, gender, ethnicity, age, disability, political beliefs, religion, sexual orientation or other personal characteristics. It also means beliefs without knowledge of the facts and may include “any unreasonable attitude that is unusually resistant to rational influence.”
In rereading America, Parrillo describes the root of prejudice in terms of sociology as follows; In the socialization process, individuals acquire the values, attitudes, beliefs and perceptions of their culture or subculture, including religion, nationality, and social class.
Generally, the child conforms to the parent’s expectations in acquiring an understanding of the world and people. Being impressionable and knowing of no alternative conceptions of the world, the child usually accepts these concepts without questioning. We thus learn the prejudice of our parents and others which then become part of our values and beliefs.
I agree with Parillo on the idea that prejudice can be inherited from our parents or learned from people we interact with. This is because when we are brought into the world, we have no idea about prejudice until our parents, peers and neighbors begin to share this belief with us, and then, we conceive it and make it part of our mental faculty for the rest of our lives unless we have decided to change our way of thinking later in life.
Parrillo identifies economic competition as another cause of prejudice. This is very true because humans, like any other animals become hostile towards each other when they feel resources are in short or their security is threatened by others. The current situation of immigration in the United States can be used to support this argument. If the United States was overflowing with jobs and needed people to do them, there will be no problem of allowing others to come and work in the United States. We can justify this from history where the United States supported mass movement of Mexicans to the United States to work on the fields. The situation today is the jobs are scarce and U.S citizens have the right to fight for their survival which has resulted in prejudice against immigrants in the United States.
Most often, we conclude prejudice being a tool adopted by one group of people in other to overcome another or to make the other group look inferior, criminal or incapable of accomplishing some relevant tasks, but I think prejudice does not really mean negativity in every situation. For example, the United States is not wrong trying to secure its borders to prevent people from coming in illegally and use their resources but how they treat other people while doing this project can make it look really bad on humanitarian basis.
Some prejudices are very bad and detrimental. For example, Thomas Jefferson described blacks of having low mentality and cannot become geniuses in society and went on to say the only capability of black people is musical talents and that blacks are actually made inferior to whites.
Prejudice in the form depicted by Jefferson is not healthy because it does not in any way promote peace, unity or progress for the people of the United States. It rather divides and creates a barrier between the citizens who are already finding it difficult to overcome the restraints of racial differences.
Another figure from rereading America who connects with the topic of prejudice is C.P Ellis. Ellis has a clear mind of being prejudice to blacks but after overcoming his fears inherited from society of being racist or sexist, he found his faith and understood the fact that prejudice was a myth in his society bestowed on people which is divides people. As he realized how far off the solution to his problem was, he decided to make a change which earned him a lot of respect and success at the end of his struggle.
Prejudice is in our mind and we express it depending on the situation we find ourselves. It is hard to say any individual has no type of prejudice thinking. Some people use it as a defense mechanism and others use it as an attacking mechanism.
Though the major prejudice experienced in the United States originates from racial differences, there are also prejudice among people of the same race all over the world. For example, ethnic groups in many countries in Africa always have clashes with each other. The main reason prejudice in the United States is mostly racial based is because of the strong hold of slavery in the United States. This is a general behavior of the animal kingdom. As a group or people of a particular race become uncomfortable with another race, they turn to be prejudice against them and label them wrongly for the fear of being overcome by that group or whatever their conscience tells them.
All this aside, l think anyone or group who is a victim of prejudice can make better use of the negativity and create an opportunity for themselves. Never let people define or limit your capability with hurtful words based on their prejudice perception of you, rather use it to motivate and inspire yourself to be a great member of the society. Doing anything negative or causing any havoc based on prejudice experiences will simply make you the bad person and make the labels become fitting. Lets make the world a better place!
