Prejudice and Discrimination

Ethel Craig

Social Psychology- Green

White

February 7, 2017

                                        Prejudice and Discrimination

        Prejudice and discrimination are two words that I do not like to talk about, but in this society those words are still very much alive. Prejudice can be defined as a preconceived thought or learning towards or against someone or something. On the other hand, discrimination refers to actions or behavior towards these things and people. Just because we don’t like someone or something, we develop many stereotypes about him or her, and start to discriminate.

        It’s sad to say as a Christian, but I live it every day, not with me but my husband. I feel like all people are made equally, no matter race, age or language, but he is so hateful and negative toward people of Mexican descent and I hate that. Being a black person raised in the late ‘50’s and ‘60’s seeing the discriminations against blacks, I would think that he would have compassion on all people, but that is not how it is.

        We live in a four-plex apartment with mostly black people in the neighborhood, with the exception of a few Mexican families. About two years ago a family moved right next door to us ( a Mexican family), up until then I had been hearing little remarks from my husband as we were driving, say things like, “ that must be a Mexican driving”, but once they moved in it got worse. If anything goes on outside of our house, it was the next door neighs that did it, or if that had company, he would say, “there they go moving families in; they need to go back to Mexico”. I think and verbalize that is so rude to say, and what if someone said to you. “Go back to Africa”.

        The prejudice that he display is “implicit prejudice’, here I believe that he feels that what he say and do is justified, but I disagree with him completely. According to our textbook, implicit prejudice is when a negative attitude toward a group of people for which the individual has little or no conscious awareness, or some people chooses not to admit that they are prejudice at all.

        A person who has been raised in a segregated manner in his or her society will have prejudices against others and communities depending on what they have been taught and has been reinforced with. Thankfully, in this age of information, these so called differences and boundaries are better appreciated and understood than ever before. This is not to say that prejudices will ever go away totally, but they should. These prejudices are harbored inside minds and get reflected through speech, comments, actions and behavior when dealing with the outside world.