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I got into a huge fight with my best friend and his wife one night about a topic like this.
We had watched "Get on the Bus", a movie about a busload of people heading to the Million Man March, in case you didn't know.
The movie dealt with how everyone has some prejudices within them. After the film, we were talking about it. I made the comment that everyone has prejudices. My friend and his wife blew up at me. They were adamant of the fact that they had absolutely no prejudices within them. They were offended that I would make such an accusation because they had spent years trying to eradicate such thinking from their minds. They became so hurt that I could suggest that even they held some prejudices that they left and we didn't speak for about a week.
Some months later, our relationship was a bit shaky because we didn't resolve that issue. It got resolved for us one day when we were at a stop sign and a large 4WD pickup pulled up beside us with a rebel flag sticker in the window. My friend commented, "fuckin' hillbilly rednecks."
"Aha!" I yelled out. "How do you know they're hillbilly rednecks?"
"Look at their truck!" he responded.
"That!...is prejudiced," I replied.
He thought for a moment, then said, "I guess you're right."
"Fuckin' hicks." I responded.
We all carry with us some form of preconceived notions of other groups of people. It doesn't make us evil to have those notions; it makes us human. It's how we decide to act that makes us what we are.
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"I can normally tell how intelligent a man is by how stupid he thinks I am" - Cormac McCarthy, All The Pretty Horses
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