Prejudices

   There are all kinds of race, sex, and religious prejudices.  They may not be justified by facts, but prejudices can be very real as perceived by an individual.  Politicians use these prejudices to divide America and win elections when their policies, agendas, and qualifications would otherwise prevent them from being elected.

How do people become prejudiced?  The most common prejudices are learned from parents, teachers, and close personal peer groups when we are young.  Some are learned from actual experiences.  When we look back on some of these prejudices now they might seem funny. 

I was married very young and had two sons before getting divorced.  My second wife and myself both happened to have been raised Lutheran.  My second wife told her mother there was something she had to tell her about me after we were dating.  She than told her I had been married and had two sons.  Her mother responded, “Good, I thought you were going to say he was Catholic.”  It sounds silly today, but as with most prejudices, they were not funny at a specific time in history. 

I have a prejudice against a certain religion, which will remain unnamed, and I am not talking about Muslims.  It started when I was in undergraduate school.  The instructor for a product management business course practiced this religion.  The instructor was lacking in both knowledge of the subject and teaching ability.  One of my best friends at the time was also in the class and we probably did not do a very good job of hiding our opinion and failed to suck up to the instructor.  Part of the course was to design a board game and a marketing plan.  My friend and I probably deserved a B in the class.

The last day for grades to be posted, my friend found me and said he had heard a rumor the instructor had been fired for trying to sell a board game as his own design that was actually one of his student’s.  My friend suspected the instructor would fail us before he left town.  We went to find him at the final hour he was required to post the grades.  He had cleaned out his office and was ready to leave after posting the grades.  When he saw us, he tried to run to his office, as he was afraid of us.  We stopped him and told him we had no intention of assaulting him.  He had not failed us, but had given us a D.  We probably should have appealed the grade, but did not.

In later years, I had problems with people from this same religion when I worked in the recreational vehicle manufacturing business, the open-wall home manufacturing business, the franchising business, and the collector car business.  We had such bad experiences with people from this religion in the collector car business that we explored ways we could legally avoid doing business with them. 

Are my prejudices against this religion justified at this point in time?  No, but it was a problem the dozen times I have done business with someone I knew was from this religion in the past.   They were all lying, backstabbing people.  I won’t tell you how I really felt. 

I know my prejudice is based on a small sample but the negative experiences for me are about ten out of ten.   It takes a very high margin of error to disregard those results.  It is hard for me to emotionally ignore those experiences.  Would I work with, do business with, or vote for someone from this religion now?  Yes, I can honestly say I would give them the benefit of the doubt. 

We all have prejudices.  The best we can do is recognize those prejudices and deal with them.  We should try to defeat politicians that try to win votes by dividing the country by race, religion, or sex.  Partisan politics is another form of prejudice.  We should vote for the best-qualified individual and not always vote the party line.   This is one way to improve the quality of candidates from both political parties.