Prejudice in society - Essay Example

Prejudice Being a part of society one inevitably has to communicate with people: meet new friends or business partners; ask strangers on the streets to tell the time or chat with taxi drivers and so on. Normally, the process of getting along with people depends on such factors as politeness, common interests and character of the ones who communicate. However, sometimes common order of things is interrupted by unwanted and rather unpleasant factors such as prejudice, which makes it hard or sometimes even impossible to cooperate.

In order to make our discussion more precise, let us turn to dictionaries for definitions of prejudice. In Wikipedia we find the following: "Prejudice is, as the name implies, the process of "pre-judging" something. In general, it implies coming to a judgment on the subject before learning where the preponderance of the evidence actually lies."* To illustrate this statement we might speak of cases of gender prejudice such as a poplar thought that men are in general smarter then women. Or, we all know of a common opinion that blonds are not quite clever.

Still, taking in account the specifics of our topic, we find it necessary to list two more definitions which are tightly connected with the subject of interracial human relationships. In holocaust dictionary we find he following: "A judgment or opinion formed before the facts are known. In most cases, these opinions are founded on suspicion, intolerance, and the irrational hatred of other races, religions, creeds, or nationalities."** Next, a Japanese Canadian history resource offers us to define prejudice as "a predetermined judgment (based on faulty interpretation) made using wrong or distorted facts.

This attitude, usually negative, is directed toward a person or group of people. Prejudiced thinking may result in acts of discrimination."*** Actually, even nowadays, when the process of globalization is speeding up, when open society turns from a beautiful dream into reality, cases of racial prejudice do not "become extinct". During the last week we had an opportunity (unfortunately, we had it) to see with our own eyes a bright example of racial prejudice. During the anti-terrorism activities in London policemen paid special attention to persons of Arabic origin.

From one side, it was quite prudent to look for Arabic and Muslim terrorists among Arabic Muslim people; however, the latter in this situation are being put under suspicion. For every one of them is a suspect, but only a few might (and absolutely not necessarily is) turn out to be the ones to blame for pointless massacres organized in the capital of Great Britain. Another bright example of racial prejudice is connected with stereotypes (as it often happens). One of the common stereotypes about Asians is that they all are extremely polite and, consequently, insincere in most of what they say.

In addition to that, many people take it as a natural phenomenon that Asians are saturated with collectivism and have not a slightest idea of what democracy really means. Such prejudice leads to suspicions and unwillingness to make friends or even have business with persons of Asian origin. Prejudice towards persons of mixed origin can serve as one more example to illustrate our discussion. People, whose parents belong to different races, such as Asian and African or others, are sometimes treated as inferiors because of that fact.

They are thought to be some kind of spiritual "bastards" who belong neither to their mother's nor to their father's culture. In such a case their parents are inevitably being put on the masks of rebels and immoral people who went against societies unwritten rules. Watching how people turn their back on others urged by prejudice is really sad. Judging others before actually getting to know them is immoral, unwise and imprudent. In addition to that, it is simply impolite. However, speaking of prejudice we first of all speak of the lack of responsibility before ourselves and everyone around.

For prejudice is a refusal to deal with ones own imperfections and an attempt to protect ourselves by ineffective methods which only bring more injustice into this world. ________________________________________ * Wikipedia the free encyclopedia. Prejudice. [Online] retrieved on 22.07.2005 from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prejudice ** [Online] retrieved on 22.07.2005 from fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/resource/glossary.htm *** [Online] retrieved on 22.07.2005 from www.japanesecanadianhistory.net/glossary.cfm