Determining if you’re prejudice

by Ivan Serrano Ivan Serrano's Blog

Most of us, actively or unknowingly, can act differently and in a noticeable manner to those who aren’t like us. In every context, prejudice is negative and is based on stereotypes that predetermine the type of attitude we’d have toward someone else or a group of people. A telling sign of whether you're prejudiced toward a group is if you use the term “they are all the same” to dismiss or bundle someone with others who fit certain characteristics of a group.

Most of the prejudice we see is across racial, ethnic, nationality, religious, sexual orientation, socioeconomic, and gender lines. Sometimes it is not as overt. Another example is professions. There is always a stereotype about artist and most take drugs and die you. There are also unfamiliar professionals that might cause us to able someone as dull or question their moral.

An example is hearing someone who is part of ICBC lawyers Surrey has processing personal injury claims. They might be doing an exceptional job in getting justice for their clients, but because of the existing narrative that they don’t take cases where they aren’t winning big money; people tend to find them exploitative. Therefore, one can say that they have prejudice over people doing specific jobs whether or not the stereotype is accurate.

What prejudice does is refuses to see someone as an individual. In the case of racism, nationalism, xenophobia, classicism, sexism, homophobia and the like, it is the refusal of treating someone as unique and judging them as a person but not according to what they are affiliated or are part of. Often people refute that they are prejudice because they wish to be politically correct or just aren’t aware. What shape prejudice are our experiences and beliefs. It is for that reason that women for centuries were not allowed to work in mines, in most areas still deal with job discrimination. In all instances, being prejudice doesn’t let a person to get judged according to their merit.

Prejudice is, however, a regular part of the human experience. Psychologists tell us that, for us to simplify and understand the world around us, we think in categories. This awareness should, therefore, allow us to be more mindful of our thinking process, especially when we think or speak negatively about a person based on the category our brain has placed them in.

We also need to have awareness that our brains are faulty. Research shows that we have the instinctual ability to see people within our group “not that much different from us” but in the same way exaggerate differences between ourselves and members of a different group. The best way to overwrite this mental process is by employing empathy when dealing with individuals from a different group. Therefore, if you note that you're prejudice, the best remedy is to ask yourself, “What would I do if I was in their shoes?”