Sorry for coming to the dance so late…
This is actually a problem that we face daily in our lives as a family. My wife and I try to continuously teach our children and ourselves that we all should continue to have open minds towards people in general and stay away from prejudice and bigotry. I teach them prejudice is dangerous.
Yet… in daily life we all see so many things in which cultures and genders are different. To such an extent that these differences quite often offer reliable predictors for behaviors and attitudes of people with different cultures and genders.
Our whole society is based on these predictions. Products for men are marketed different than those for women, for instance. Sometimes we even understand some of the differences. Different hormone levels result in different personality traits.
Not only the difference between men and women is clear, though. Also there are clear differences between cultures. Van Hofstede has done a lot of, often brilliant, research into these cultural differences. Need for personal freedom, acceptance of power distance, femininity of culture, etc. My observation: strict Middle East muslims are definitely different from atheist Dutch people.
So… can we take these differences in account when approaching the people around us?
Of course… quite often we even need to. When we don’t, then our lives become hell. Nevertheless… this is a form of prejudice and when culture and ‘race’ become correlated, as they so often are, this prejudice comes close to racism.
So if prejudice on race/culture is bad… how come it can be very useful, sometimes necessary in day to day life? It cannot be all bad and therefore I like your question.
I think I am reaching to the conclusion, that racial and cultural prejudice become racism, when:
* we think that our prejudice towards the group is a valid and true assertion of all individuals in that group.
* we think that we as an individual are better than the individuals of another group.
* we think we are entitled of better or different treatment merely based on our culture or race.
Note that I think it quite OK to feel that some cultures are worse than my own. I actually believe there are superior and inferior cultures. I would like to challenge anyone that says this is untrue, but still believes in equal rights for men, women and people of different genders and culture.
(That last sentence was pretty cryptic, but true.)