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How have you overcome prejudice in your life?
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Vent all you want, it's healthy and the women here will listen. I suggest that when things get overwhelming, grab a bed pillow, go into the bathroom and scream into the pillow, or beat the hell out of it. That should help with the frustration a bit
Thanks for your support - supporting caregivers and those with Alzheimer's is so important!
I'm not going to have an affair. I'm getting divorced. I wouldn't have an affair. I feel guilty talking.
I’ve come back to this a couple of times but without a clear answer. It did, however, make me think. I would like to think that I have overcome prejudice,my own and that against me, but I ‘m not sure I have even though I sincerely want to. I notice my reactions and sometimes they are prejudiced even though I wish they weren’t.
My son has probably done more to change my prejudices than anyone else in my life. I was raised in a typical Christian home, went to church and tried to follow the doctrines. Our church was adamantly against homosexuality and believed that gay people could overcome this ‘sin’ if they really wanted to. I guess I never really questioned that thinking as I knew no one who was homosexual.
Along comes son, raised as I was raised, attending the same church but NOT adopting all the beliefs. He was friends with a boy and a girl in high school who ‘came out’ in the last grade of school. Neither of them fit the stereotyped gay person. Turns out that he has known that both were gay a few years before but had kept their wishes and not revealed it to anyone. He has also done a lot of study on this and had come to the conclusion that no one ‘chooses’ to be homosexual and that you can’t just overcome it by wishing or praying.
So here I was with my preconceived idea of what a gay person was like and I was dead wrong. And I saw what hell those kids and their parents went through when they came out. One father was threatening to disown his only son until a friend asked him what terrible things the boy had done, what crimes he had committed, what drugs he was high on etc and when the response was that he had done none of these things, the friend then told him that he should accept his son as the wonderful human being he had always been.
I still find it hard to view over the top gay people who play into the Hollywood stereotype but I now firmly believe that sexuality does not define a person, their character does Both of his friends have gone on to find partners and they are working and contributing members of society. And we have found a church that is much more accepting and welcomes all who wish to enter its doors.
Praise God!! I love people I look at their character what they contribute to the Universe. Their sexuality is non of my business, if they wish to share it with me ok.
Parents stop disowning our kids and continue to love them.
I think everyone has some prejudices, and we may not even be aware of all of them until a situation arises. Personally, moving from a small southern town, where I grew up and there was a lot of racial division – to a larger southern, university town helped me to see the world in a broader way. I really never liked feeling any prejudice in the first place, but it was infused into the culture where I grew up. I have now known people of many ethnicities from the U.S. and from around the world, and I work very hard to find our commonalities and view our differences as interesting rather than right/wrong or good or bad. I’m not perfect, but I try to always keep it in my awareness, because awareness gives us freedom to choose how to behave and the responsibility for what we choose.
As far as gay people are concerned, I am a gay person. Technically I’m somewhere in the middle on Kinsey’s scale, because sexuality is not a dichotomy, it is a continuum and it can be fluid. I think it’s a disservice to everyone to force a label of gay, straight or even bisexual because there are realities that fit elsewhere. I am certain that this is a natural part of the world – humans and other animals that reproduce sexually have members all over that continuum. My parents were straight, nobody talked about gay rights when I was young. Certainly no one talked me into being gay, though I was in straight relationships until my early 40′s. The only discussions were usually whispers about a “queer,” which was definitely not a positive term. They were marginalized by society, treated with disrespect and bullied. Nobody deserves that for being who they are.
I still find it hard to deal with over-the-top straight people who use their religion to hate and discriminate, show ignorance by making unsupported claims about human nature and the nature of gay people, and basically justify mean-spiritedness. It’s similar to the way society viewed the American Indian during the 18th and 19th centuries. First they were godless savages, then they were noble natives who should be pitied, and often they were treated as childlike because they simply weren’t understood. All of these views were insulting to them as equal humans on this planet.
I’ve had a lot of “diversity” responsibilities in jobs I’ve had. One of the most helpful exercises I’ve seen to get people to try to have an objective view is to take every question you want to ask a gay person and turn it around and see what it would be like to ask it of a straight person. If it seems like an intrusive or a stupid question to ask of a straight person, it probably comes across that way to gay people. For example, would you ask a straight person, “Did you have a bad same-sex experience and that is why you decided to be heterosexual?” (dumb, right?)
I don’t think any of us should be too hard on ourselves for having some prejudices, at least in the beginning of our awareness of them. I read a study that fear of strangers is behind a lot of our prejudice. So when people who are different from us appear on the horizon, we may have a natural fear or anxiety or reservation about them. But as humans, we have all kinds of abilities to overcome those initial reactions, mostly by interaction. I try to talk to people about our differences and usually preface it with, “I want to be as respectful as possible. Would you help me out if I say something the wrong way or ask a question that might be considered rude?” Almost always the other person becomes more accepting of my attempt to understand them better.
Also, sort of cool to note, the bishop – Spong – quoted in this initial post is the same person whose quote I have up in my office: “No prejudice is ever debated that isn’t already dying.”
Fortunately, I wasn’ t taught prejudice, but I am sure I have a few…..As for Bishop Spong…he wrote to e a few years ago.
Very cool.
One way I had to overcome prejudice was when I became a college teacher to several racially unmixed classes in which I was being treated with racial prejudice. My students thought I would not care about them because my race was different. They thought I would not help them because my race was different. They pre-judged me based on my skin color. By the end of the term, they knew differently, and we celebrated their success with a pizza party after their hard-won grades were posted. They gave me a card signed by every class member that said they loved me, and that they had learned so much, and that they would always remember me. They learned not only the subject matter, but also not to pre-judge people by race.
me.
Let me see if I can explain it from my vantage point. There are people who are prejudiced against something or someone for a certain reason and then there are RACISTS. These are people who dislike an entire race of people because of skin color. I have been subjected to plenty of racism throughout my life (and it continues) but I have learned to live with the attitude that “What you think of me is none of my business–as long as you don’t threaten me with bodily harm.”
We live in a highly polarized society where people lump others together based on things they’ve “heard” or the actions of a “few” without getting to know people individually.
roseannacoe, that’s a great story, thanks for sharing it. I have had some similar experiences as a teacher. Beverly, yeah, there are RACISTS, unfortunately. There are also ageists, and I get some of that now that I’m so oooooooold – you know over 50, to be exact 53. There are also homophobes, and I get a lot of that too. I really hate the term homophobic because most people aren’t scared, they are just mean.
I hope I live long enough to one day see that this country (and hopefully the world) will have no use for labels any more, that we at long last will simply be human beings, male or female with no need to be identified by ethnicity, sexual orientation or religion.
One by one, we can make that change.
There is change on homophobic but not on religion. That one is so worldwide and deep it may never be fixed. Whether you are talking about a brand of religion or a lack of it, those thoughts can be a death reality if others know what is really in your head.
There is no stronger belief than the true follower of any given faith or lack of it. It is like trying to straighten the thinking of a demented 90 year old.
There is change in homophobia in industrialized western nations. There is still a lot of homophobia in the world. As Ahmadinejad said a few years ago, there are no “homosexuals” in Iran. Right. Yes there are, though those that are caught are stoned to death.
Until there is real equality, identifying as gay or Muslim or black or whatever the category, will continue because as long as there is oppression, there is a need for the support of community. So there will be gay community, and religious community, and minority community. It would be very nice not to need this, but we aren’t there yet.
I always believed lawbreakers deserved no breaks. If I had to obey the laws, why shouldn’t they ? Then my family adopted a child who has inheirited bio mom’s personality disorders. His self destructive behaviors are overwhelming. He is big hearted, but lacks self discipline. He loves his family, but not himself. It is heartbreaking to watch him take one step forward then two back. This has been my lesson in judging others. We do not all have the mental capacity or the innate ability to function on the same level. There are good and bad people in our prisons. There are both good and bad who succeed in the business world. Bad choices do not make the individual a bad person. With age comes wisdom. Maturity is hard earned for some and a true miracle for others.