pan6467

Prejudging people and being prejudice can be 2 totally different things.

I can say that when we have a 20 something white heroin addict come in to detox, the first thing crossing everyone's mind is this is a rich white kid who got messed up and is going to be very demanding. And 9 out of 10 are, however that 10th one is very humble and is truly there to help themself.

Now is that first thinking prejudging an individual, absolutely, based on experience. However, if you focus on that prejudice and act on it and treat that client as being the rich white kid messed up and demanding, then that is what you will get.

However, if you treat that client with respect and understanding and like the 50 year old alcoholic that is living in the streets, you have a better chance of turning the stereotype, prejudged client into one who may be the humble, truly wanting to get clean kid.

It works that way in everything. If I am driving in a bad neighborhood (which just happened as I was lost in Philly last night) and I see a group of black men and I immediately turn to stereotypes and prejudices, then bad things are more apt to happen.

Contempt and fear bring out contempt and fear.

However, if I stop and put down my window and talk to them like men and ask for help, I may find them to be very nice and helpful....

Guess which I did? Had I not asked for help, I would never have found the Holiday Inn on Arch as I had turned the wrong way off the Ben Franklin and gone quite a few blocks down 5th the wrong way.

Now, say I am lost in Cape May, New Jersey and I see what appears to be a white suburban tourist and I choose to ask him for directions because he appears "safe". All of a sudden he pulls a gun takes my wallet pulls me out of my car and drives off.

The point, based on stereotypes and prejudices..... you can be very, very wrong.

The only way to judge ANY PERSON is by their actions and not what the stereotype is. You have to treat every person with respect and as an individual and in doing so chances are any fears you have hidden will be greatly eased by the respect you recieve in return.

It's far easier to train yourself to respect others for their diversity than it is to train yourself to hate. At least it is for me.
=====================================================

PS as for my rants above, I am a very passionate person and when someone is telling me that because I say I have never seen racism and that I believe reverse racism and people using their ethnicity or sex to make claims they have no right to, and that person is telling me I am wrong, it irks me. Do you know what my experiences are? Do you know what I have seen? No? Then why are you "prejudging" my statements and attacking them?

I work just as hard as anyone else (sometimes harder because I truly love my job and to me it isn't work...99% of the time) and I have no time for the games.

I am liberal in many ways. I am a proud Democrat but I have also seen too many of my Dem. brethren fall into the "labels" and the want to eradicate racism/sexism by pointing out others races and sex, when there is no need to.

If you are hiring someone, or giving someone a better chance in school, or treating an individual differently based on race/sex/ethnicity then by pointing out the difference you are being prejudiced yourself. You are prejudging that that person deserves and is owed a better chance based on criteria that should not and would not matter if you weren't pointing it out.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"