Have you ever worked on a prejudice so that you no longer have it?

[La Lioness Priyanka]

i used to be anti-islamic. i was raised in india and its safe to say that most people who are not islamic, are anti-muslim. however i tried to fix it, took a freshman year class on Islam and worked on my prejudice.

So have you ever had a prejudice that you know of and wanted to get rid of? what did you do?

[Midlodemocrat]

1. Well, I'm anti stupidity, but it seems to be working for me so far.

J/K.

No, I really don't have a prejudice that needs to be worked on.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

2. good for you

[suninvited]

3. It was pointed out to me once that I am prejudiced

against prejudiced people. I have really worked on that one, and am doing much better at it, now !

[crim son]

4. Yes. Born a Canadian, I thought all Americans

were rich, fat and dumb (except my father). Then he moved us here, and I learned very quickly that I was wrong.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

5. ...

:rofl:

:thumbsup:

[Hugin]

7. About which part?

Rich?

:rofl:

[crim son]

9. I've said all I'm going to say.

:rofl:

[Pierre.Suave]

11. Well

I am poor, handsome, and smart, so I just blasted that prejudice out of the water.

;-)

[crim son]

13. Yes sir.

That you have. :hi:

[Pierre.Suave]

18. Hi to you as well

I hear you have been fighting for democracy in local pubs?

[crim son]

21. I do what I can.

I'm going to give it a break this Saturday, though, out of respect for St. Paddy.

[Pierre.Suave]

28. I thought that

St. Paddy was the patron saint of Speaking up for Democracy in Pubs...

[ThomCat]

6. Yes.

So I become a habitual volunteer. I put in thousands of hours doing volunteer work, various causes, various groups, and got to know a lot of different people. It's hard to hold prejudices about people when you are actively trying to get to know them and work with them.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

8. well what was your prejudice?

:P

[ThomCat]

19. That would be quite a list.

I was definitely raised racist, and sexist, and homophobic, and nationalistic. There are people in my family who are openly proud of being total bigots. It's not uncommon to hear slurs used in casual conversation.

[Pierre.Suave]

10. I dont think I have a prejudice

What i do have are stereotypes and social brainwashing that can at times influence behavior unwittingly, I try to be cognizant of that and not let it affect how I treat others.

to me a prejudice is an active, participatory thing, it can not be done blindly, or without the users knowledge. So no, I don't go around actively being prejudiced towards others, but I do have the stereotypes and I try not to let those affect how I interact with others.

[idgiehkt]

12. my prejudice

against my own appalachian roots. I rebelled against it, didn't want to be associated with it, dropped my southern accent, etc. Then I got out in the world and learned that well-schooled folks with more money are not innately good or virtuous. I still feel pulled in between two cultures, middle class and working class sometimes.

[Kerrytravelers]

14. I don't know if it was a prejudice per say, but I didn't understand why people would want surgery to

change their gender. It kind of baffled me. I grew up in the bay Area, and had always heard of transgendered people, but I never knew one or understood it.

To fix this problem, I did a little reading. Then, I watched documentaries on television. Most notable, I watched Transgeneration and the film TransAmerica. While I would never outwardly harass someone, I didn't realize all the preconceived notions I had about Transgendered people.

Now, I can't imagine what it is like to be in their shoes. I have more empathy in my heart and I think I am a more understanding person.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

17. good for you. this is sort of what i was looking for.

i cant believe that most people werent raised w. some prejudice

[mainegreen]

15. I used to believe all that 'welfare mom, lazy poor stuff'. But then I moved away from my white-bread

Maine family for a while. That cured that right up. I think most of us get our big prejudices from our parents, and it takes moving away to work on that.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

16. good point.

[fudge stripe cookays]

29. AMEN!

My mother was EXTREMELy racist, as was her entire family. When I got to college, I began realizing something was wrong with the way I raised (going to school with Mexicans, Blacks, gays, Muslims and Jews).

After watching "Mississippi Burning" I told her that if she ever used the N word in front of me again, I'd walk out of the room. And it took some doing, but I trained her, like Pavlov's dogs, to no longer use the N word. Or to spew hate in front of me.

It wasn't until I got completely free of her at 26 that I began pointedly changing my attitudes. ALL of them. Parents can teach us well. Or they can raise us to be just like them. It's up to us to create our own attitiudes when we realize what they've done.

[Burma Jones]

20. Yes, against African Americans

I was brought up hearing the N word daily. Born in Gary, Indiana and had to hear constantly about how the city was being ruined by "the coloreds." Spent a couple years in Metaire, LA - home of David Duke - the Middle School I attended got around desegregation by platooning - an African American school body attended school from 6:30 to 12:30 and the white kids went from 1:00 to 7:00, but we were in the same building....Our Math teacher would remind us to take all our things home with us so the "coloreds" wouldn't steal them....
It got to where I refused to sing a duet (Silent Night) in Church with a Persian Girl because I thought she was too black - a shitty thing, and maybe my life's biggest regret - how I made that Girl feel. It was a hateful place, full of the first generation of white flight.

Fortunately, we left Metaire and moved to the DC area. My Junior and Senior High Schools were integrated because the neighborhoods were. I started playing trumpet seriously and opened my eyes to Jazz. I met black kids whose parents were Doctors and Attorneys and Engineers as well as Carpenters, Mechanics and Laborers. I played Football and Baseball with everyone....My closest friend in High School is a black guy.

So, I don't know if I had to work on it, or whether I just let the shit go and enjoyed all the people around me.

I think my biggest prejudice now is people that talk more than they listen......

[MAGICBULLET]

22. Police -

I always fear them just because of friends' experiences that didn't go too well. I immediately get on the defensive whenever encountered by them, which isn't that often. I have this feeling whenever I'm stopped by a cop that I am obligated to kiss their asses, and this is a problem I still struggle with.

[madinmaryland]

23. Well yes.

Growing up in an isolated midwestern community, the stereotypical prejudices were ingrained into everyone there about all races/religions/orientations. Until I got into the real world and met people outside of the circle of people I grew up, I was not able to understand how prejudiced I was. From there I could confront my prejudices and work on change.

[MissMillie]

24. Well, I certainly try to work on whatever I am ignorant about

For certainly this is where most prejudicial judgments come from. Right?

[undeterred]

25. Yes- I am a white female and was afraid of blacks

especially black men. I lived in a racially integrated neighborhood for 19 years. Theoretically I was liberal, but really I was afraid of black people and I had never had a black friend, lived in a mixed neighborhood, or dated someone black. I honestly felt fear around black people. And I was a little embarrassed about it.

My attitude did not change overnight, but one experience at a time. I remember once when my car was stuck on ice in the middle of the night and there was a black man outside my car door. My gut response was fear, but he was not doing anything threatening. I rolled down my window. He told me I was making an awful lot of noise, and his wife said to him "Instead of complaining about it, why don't you go down there and help her", so I am here to push you out. Which he did. The next day I met him as a neighbor in the light of day and told him I was a volunteer on call to see a rape victim at a local hospital. She was black. He offered to go with me for safety any time I had to go out in the middle of the night on call.

There were lots of experiences after that which changed me, but that one was huge.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

26. wow! thanks for sharing.

[SPKrazy]

27. No... don't think so...

well maybe...

I have tried to get to know people from Texas to get over that... kidding

I'm not a prejudiced person... I've had some in the past, but maybe getting to know people that were different from me helped me over it? I think prejudice is based mostly in fear.

:shrug:

[Oeditpus Rex]

30. A prejudice, yes

It didn't really manifest in bigotry; it was just simple ignorance and misinformation about GLBT folks.

I used to believe stuff like all gay men are effeminate, all gay people are secretly ashamed of being gay, if a gay man found me attractive he wouldn't care that I was "straight" and all kinds of other crap.

Mostly, I just got educated. I read some stuff and sought out GLBT folks for their realities. I have a friend who's MTF transgendered. I haven't talked to her in person since the change, just via e-mail and PM, but I hope we get to have lunch or something soon.

Some DUers have been just great about enlightening me, too. Even if I haven't talked with you, I've paid attention.

Tell ya one thing — Dr. David Ruben's book, "Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask)" did a great disservice to a lotta people, and not just gay people.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

32. ...

:hi:

[LanternWaste]

31. For the longest time...

For the longest time, I was a bit of an anti-atheist. Thought they were all mean spirited and intellectual elitists for thumbing their noses at magical thinking people (which I think meant people of faith) and blaming the miseries of this world on religion rather than people.

Then I met "her". The most gentle, kind and quiet soul in the world who simply didn't believe in God. Through friendship we easily crossed, and then mended that divide and so many others; learning through each other that pejoratives were the tools of the simple-minded and civil dialog *always* an option.

Ya just never know, sometimes...

[Pab Sungenis]

33. I don't think so.

I think the best you can hope for is that down the road you acknowledge and recognize your prejudice, and can work through it.

[unpossibles]

34. I grew up in rural Kentucky

and while I did not consider myself to be racist or sexist or homophobic, I also ignored bigotry. I laughed at others' jokes and did not speak out about it until I was about 15 when I was hanging out with my granddad (the kind of guy who says there was no Civil War, there was a 2nd Revolution and "we" lost.... :eyes: ) and I could not take it any longer. I told him that while I could not change the way he thinks, that I would prefer he not be a racist around me at the very least.

he called me a "god damn liberal" and I had no idea what that was.

Anyway, I made it a point to try to give more people a chance, to actually meet people before I judged them as much as possible. When I moved to Columbus to go to OSU where there are 60,000 students and even more people living around the campus from every walk of life and all over the world, I got to meet a lot more people, and the more people I met, the more I realized that good people come in every flavor, so to speak (stop it, you pervs!). The assholes come in every flavor too, unfortunately (I said stop that!).

Anyway, we're all people and we do not get to choose who we are going to be born as, but we do get to choose who we are when we grow up.

I think it may have helped that I got made fun of for practically every reason a kid can get made fun of - glasses, bad teeth, being fat, wearing hand-me down clothes that were cheap to begin with, etc. - so I think that gave me a bit of empathy with people who get shit on for whatever reason, so I try not to be an asshole because I don't want to add to someone's shitpile.

Sorry if my colorful language offends. I've actually gotten better about that if you can imagine.

[racaulk]

35. That's a very thought provoking question.

I grew up in a very small, poor, rural town in North Carolina. My family for the most part is extremely racist, sexist, and homophobic, and I grew up mirroring those viewpoints until I was old enough to develop my own. I remember like it was yesterday when all that changed. I was a sophomore in high school having lunch with some friends one day. I was making some homophobic joke (I had already started to realize that I'm gay and I was, you know, trying to throw suspicion off of myself) and my friend Teresa looked me in the eyes, with a stone-cold, expressionless face, and said...

"I don't think that's funny."

That was a very simple statement, but it hit me like a ton of bricks. I laughed it off at the time, but later I really reflected upon what she said and why she had reacted the way she did. That began a long period of introspection for me about my prejudices and attitudes about others. When I left home and went to college a few years later, and I began to meet more people from different places and different walks of life, that really changed me even more, and made me a better person.

That's basically how I began to overcome those prejudices that were instilled in me when I was young child. I suppose sometimes it takes someone on the outside looking in to call you out on your behavior to help you realize that it is inappropriate.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

36. thanks for sharing.

[undeterred]

37. I guess I am a straight person

who used to be biased against gays. It makes me ashamed to think about it.

Growing up, I had no idea that gay people existed. Honestly, it was never mentioned in any sex education I have had so to me there simply was no such thing. In college I was in fundy Christian groups. Eventually I found out that certain people were sexually interested in people of the same sex and they couldn't be in our groups. But I never really gave it much thought and I was basically pretty obtuse about it. I used the religious justification. But it was simply not part of my experience so I could not imagine that people did not have a choice about this.

Around age 30 I had a close friendship with a woman who was gay/bisexual and happened to be interested in me. I also had a close friendship with a man who was gay/bisexual and I was interested in him. In both of these relationships I started out with the idea that sexual attraction toward the same sex was simply wrong, and I ended up learning that my attitude was simply hurtful. Nothing I said or did could change the reality of other peoples experiences, and after truly letting both of these people into my life and trying to understand them, I realized that I was simply wrong. I hurt these two people very much and I regret it. But I appreciate that they were vulnerable enough to let me get to know and understand them, because that is what changed me.

After that I approached gay/bisexual people with much greater acceptance. I ended up moving to Madison, which is one of the most gay accepting communities in the country, and I am proud to be part of it. Last year I worked to fight against the Marriage Amendment in Wisconsin which makes it harder for gays to achieve marriage equality- it won anyway.

[guitar man]

38. sure have

I was a first class bigoted asshole when I was younger. Raised that way, as were a whole lot of people from my generation. Being raised that way is no excuse for staying that way. First a desire to change is required, then lots of working on the problem is required.

It does not go away overnight, and every once in a while old thoughts and habits might try to creep in. The main comfort I have is that I will NOT raise my child that way and will not allow my child to be around family members that flaunt such behavior.

I think everyone being willing to admit that this is a continuing process and not a "light switch" that can just be shut off all of a sudden is going to be the key to healing and having a better tomorrow for us and our children. :)