Prejudice is a learnt trait

“Prejudice is a learnt attitude. You are taught to be prejudice, you are not born prejudice.”

Prejudice is the quality or condition of judging someone or a group of people before you meet them, usually by using stereotypes. People are not born to be prejudice; they are taught and influenced by their parents, friends and surroundings. Furthermore, prejudicial attitudes stem from ignorance and this leads to an unbreakable chain. People are not born with the mentality of hating someone because of their race, culture or sex. “If your lens are prejudice, you are wearing the wrong prescription.” It is against nature to hate your own species. So how do people develop prejudice?

It can be assumed that children are not as prejudice as their parents since they are generally happy to get along with anybody that’s nice to them because they have not been exposed to the stereotypes in society. As they grow up and become exposed to more ethnic groups and people, they are taught to stay away from certain individuals to protect them. Parents and teachers constantly remind children of “stranger danger” and this creates a template of who is dangerous which then carries onto their views later on in their lives. The template created by adults teaches children to have prejudicial attitudes towards certain types of people. If your parents taught you to trust women rather than men, as a child, wouldn’t you believe them? Children choose to believe their parents’ points of views because they haven’t had the opportunity to create their own opinions. As adults, parents would already have multiple experiences with different people and cultures, which they pass onto their children. As well as passing on their own knowledge, parents also hand down their prejudicial attitudes to their children. Consequently, children who develop these prejudicial attitudes pass them onto their own children as well.

E.B. White once said, “Prejudice is a great time saver. You can form opinions without having to get the facts.” People choose to believe stereotypes because they’re easier to understand but also because they’re afraid of challenging them. Additionally, these fears of challenging stereotypes are associated with ignorance (lack of knowledge or information). When people lack the knowledge or information about a person or group of people, it results in prejudice. In the film, Gran Torino, the main protagonist, Walk Kowalski has limited experiences and also lacked knowledge of the Hmong, which ensued his prejudicial attitudes towards them. As his neighbor, Sue, teaches Walt more about the Hmong culture, he discovers that they have the same values as him and ultimately becomes close friends with them and even stands as a fatherly figure for Sue’s younger brother, Thao. It can be said that many people choose not to go through the effort of learning more about different people merely because it’s easier and less time consuming than building relationships with more people. Although, even if a person were to try and learn more about a different culture, they’d already have their own opinions based from stereotypes, which holds them back and hinders their ability to look past their prejudicial thoughts and feelings.

Prejudice is the chain forged by ignorance to keep men apart, which is exactly why it is so unnatural. It goes against human nature to want to be apart from other people yet society is convinced that prejudice is normal and therefore acceptable to pass onto future generations. This belief is what causes the chain of prejudice to be unbreakable. People are prisoners of their own experiences. “No one can escape prejudice- only recognise them.” People recognise prejudicial attitudes and even berate others for being prejudiced when in reality, they’re doing the same thing. The reason why prejudice cannot be overcome is because society chooses not to. It’s never to late to give up our prejudices but instead of overcoming these preconceived ideas, people make the choice to continue to pass on their prejudicial attitudes to their children or even their friends and family. We pick up new prejudices as we go through life at school, work and also at home. You may hear people saying things about someone and because you don’t know anything about that person you instantly choose the side of the person talking because they are the source of the information you use to base your prejudice from. All it takes is one person to start the chain of prejudice.

Children are not born with prejudice. No one is. The people surrounding you as well as your own experiences and surroundings teach you prejudice. It’s like talking or walking. Babies cannot talk or walk but are taught by their parents. Prejudice is the same.