| To:
Guardian CiF Re: The folly of equating prejudice with RACISM Date: Wednesday 11 July 07 |
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| In
response to the article, "Racism isn't going away"
by Hugh Muir. Link to article and thread at The Guardian. |
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| To:
Guardian CiF Re: The folly of equating prejudice with RACISM Date: Wednesday 11 July 07 |
|
|
|
|
| In
response to the article, "Racism isn't going away"
by Hugh Muir. Link to article and thread at The Guardian. |
|
Hugh Muir's opening story of the shopkeeper is a classic (and hilarious) case of human prejudice, NOT of RACISM.
Human beings have always been, are, and will always be prejudiced. We ALL have to learn to live with that - with our own prejudices and with the prejudices of others.
It is not about "skin pigmentation" either, but about the associations that go with it.
The human brain cannot deal with hundreds, let alone thousands or millions, of individuals as individuals, but HAS to organize them into groups, which it is then BOUND to characterize.
This means that everyone gets unfairly characterized, because they have been placed in this or that group; something which can only be rectified when you get to know the individual - but you can only get to know a relatively small number of individuals . . . .
In any society, and a thousand times more so in a multi-racial/multicultural society, there will be PREJUDICE: towards individuals AND towards groups of individuals.
If society continues to equate PREJUDICE with RACISM we are in deep, deep trouble.