—
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the way we talk about prejudice, and how that informs our actions. I feel we aren’t being honest. First with ourselves, and then ultimately with others.
Most people probably wouldn’t refer to themselves as prejudiced. And yet personal prejudice, both overt and subtle, is everywhere. It’s easier to note others’ prejudice as opposed to perceiving our own.
In examining my own life I am constantly reminded of my own prejudices. They arrive unbidden, illicit flashes of misinformation and insecurity. Open-minded as I may try to be, I am still full of mistaken beliefs. I do my best to circumnavigate and disassemble them. Part of that involves reflecting on my childhood and some of the more embarrassing moments that stick out as milestones in a slow journey out of ignorance.
Like the time I was eight.
It was summer and I was in the kitchen in the front of the house while my parents watched TV in the living room. I saw a large brown-skinned family; parents, children, and elderly, walking down the middle of the street wearing clothes that looked like colorful costumes. They were most likely from India, as our neighborhood would experience an influx of Indian transplants over the coming decade.
But I didn’t know that. I just saw a family of brown people walking through my overwhelmingly white neighborhood. I was so shocked by every element of their existence. I immediately ran into the living room and shouted to my parents.
“There are Hindus in the street!”
I had no idea how wildly inappropriate my response was. I didn’t know a Hindu from a Hutu. I might as well have run into the living room screaming:
“There’s Neo-Paganists in the street!”
I was many years from learning the difference between religion and ethnicity. All I knew then is Robert Chan, an Asian kid in my class who could flip his eyelids inside out, had told me something about Hindus, and I “knew” they were brown, so my mental model was cast.
It would be another five years before I started to learn about global cultures before I met and became friends with Indian and Pakistani kids. But even friendship didn’t make me instantly globally aware.
By the time I got to High School, the student body was still predominantly white, but 40% minority (the chancellor of the school district proudly said so) comprising mostly of kids of Asian and Indian subcontinent descent.
It made sense our school would have an International Cultural Club (I never joined) that put on a multicultural night (which I never went to). I thought it was for people from international cultures. Those other cultures.
It’s a shame, joining might have expedited my education, instead of allowing me to be repeatedly blindsided by my own ignorance.
Like the time I was 14.
I was in class and had turned around to chat with the girl behind me, Yogeeta. While I was friendly with her I wouldn’t say we were friends. I’m not sure if I knew her heritage, surely I never asked. I knew she was brown and hung out with her brown friends. Yogeeta was pretty quiet, typically sitting in the back of the classroom in her winter coat, which was kind of a thing back then
She asked me if I was coming to Multicultural Night. I told her I wasn’t. When she asked me why the words slipped out of my mouth before I had a chance to filter them.
“It’s mainly for minorities.”
Minorities? I don’t know if I had ever said the word aloud before. I realized instantly how stupid and ignorant my comment had been. Yogeeta snapped at me.
“What do you think you are? You’re not from this country!”
Whatever happened next, I probably didn’t apologize. I was too embarrassed to speak. Our conversation ended almost immediately. Class started and I turned around to focus on anything else. The edges of my clearly penciled-in worldview had just been smudged.
While I didn’t think I was outwardly trying to segregate my life from the people of color in my school, I definitely had, at least mentally. I had internalized some backward rationality. The way white kids will do when they grow up in a town full of white kids. I saw myself not as part of the fabric of the different cultures but as quarter Irish, quarter German, and half Italian; the way I would describe my heritage to anybody who asked.
All of those views merged into a narrow and sometimes exclusionary view of culture, certainly international culture. There was so much I took for granted back then.
Much of my education in life has been a slow trickle towards awareness. Every so often that slow trickle is interrupted by deeply embarrassing moments of my own naivete.
As I have gotten older, I have learned to keep my mouth shut in times of confusion or cross-cultural exploration. I have grown better at asking questions instead of stating misinformed opinions. I have become familiar with the feeling of not-knowing that can pervade cross-cultural interactions.
Like the time I was 17.
My senior year of high school I was at a conference when my friend Tanya was telling a story about running into a group of non-English speaking Chicana maids cleaning her hotel room.
I had never heard the word “Chicana” before. In my dumb mind, I thought she was using a funny slang, something possibly derogatory. I gathered the context (or so I thought) and didn’t say anything.
It wasn’t until weeks later I learned Chicana wasn’t a slur but a term describing women of Mexican descent, a term Tanya actually understood while I just thought I did. I assumed the funny sounding word I had never encountered was bad. It probably came from feeling like I was informed, knowledgeable, worldly (in all of my 17 years) like I would be more aware of positive language than negative. I always assumed I was more aware than I actually was.
It’s amazing that assumption didn’t get me into more trouble.
These skewed beliefs I had weren’t taught to me by my parents. They weren’t deliberately instilled in me by anybody. But being young meant being naturally absorbent to the world around me. Even before the proliferation of the internet, there were so many sources of information outside my home. Often times I would hear false or prejudiced statements repeatedly and without any context. I wasn’t thinking about fact-checking. I wasn’t engaging in critical thinking. I was just absorbing, and sometimes internalizing without noticing.
What unites my trifecta of ignorant moments (by no means an exhaustive list) is a sense of separation from individuals whose appearance did not exactly mirror my own. A sense of otherness I felt entitled to designate.
My prejudice didn’t exist in overtly hateful words or a desire for physical segregation, but that doesn’t mean it was any more acceptable.
In hindsight, it is quite scary how easily those mistaken beliefs took root in my mind. As I grew up I was fortunate enough to have enough good people, mentors, and opportunities to travel, so those beliefs didn’t stay rooted for long.
I am still susceptible. To my own ignorance. To my laziness when it comes to learning. To not going further to understand what somebody else is experiencing. And that’s why those misbeliefs still arise. Though now I feel so much more agency in combating them.
But I would be a fool to believe I am immune to them, that any of us are.
—
If you believe in the work we are doing here at The Good Men Project, please join like-minded individuals in The Good Men Project Premium Community.
◊♦◊
◊♦◊
Get the best stories from The Good Men Project delivered straight to your inbox, here.
◊♦◊
◊♦◊
Sign up for our Writing Prompts email to receive writing inspiration in your inbox twice per week.
The Good Men Project is an Amazon.com affiliate. If you shop via THIS LINK, we will get a small commission and you will be supporting our Mission while still getting the quality products you would have purchased, anyway! Thank you for your continued support!
Photo: Getty Images