From prejudice to racism and back…

We’ve been talking and thinking a lot about racism, lately. I believe it is essentially a cultural issue that is tied to prejudice and bigotry.

As the theory goes, prejudice happens when we prejudge negatively people without knowing much about their culture, beliefs, thoughts, or feelings.

Bigotry is more intense than prejudice, as it is often accompanied by some discriminatory behavior that’s more arrogant and mean-spirited.

I see racism as a further worsening of the two other behaviors, as it based and delineated on racial differences and often becomes violent and out of control.

Yet, at the end of day, all these behavior are incorporated into culture and originate essentially from parental and social education as well as schooling.

Parents tend to pass too easily their prejudices onto their own children during normal, casual conversations. Schools censure “inconvenient truths” from their curriculum and build false narratives that entire generation will staunchly believe in.

Every judgment or prejudice that we pass on others and that are within hearing distance from our children, contaminate them for life and perpetuate a culture of preconceived views that poison the well of culture and society.

Yes, at various degrees, we’re all prejudice and perhaps worse, and that sad culture is mostly the by-product of the way we’ve been raised.

Now might be the right time to taking concrete steps in order to stamp these behaviors out of our lives!