How do you keep your prejudices from affecting those you are prejudiced toward?

This is a complicated question. It seems to me that if you’re trying to keep your prejudices from affecting other people, you’re not so prejudiced as you think you are.

Suppose you have the notion that people with blue eyes are shifty and untrustworthy. If you know that this is not true, and try not to take it into account when making decisions, you’re already making a reasonable effort in the right direction. On the other hand, if you believe that it is true, you really don’t want to prevent it from affecting your decisions, because it’s a valuable data point, at least in that worldview.

It’s not a question of having the right but having the power—and whatever gives me the power to decide based on valid reasons also gives me the power to decide based on invalid reasons.

So can someone give you the power to affectively discriminate?

Agreed with @cwilbur that if you have a blatant prejudice, then you’re not in the least bit concerned with keeping it from affecting others. You would want it to work to the detriment of those you dislike, keep them out of your neighborhoods, prevent them from feeling accepted, banish them.

But we all have subconscious prejudices of some form, and if a person is evolved enough to recognize that all prejudice is by its very nature toxic, and is determined to root it out of her own heart so that it won’t cause harm in the world, then I think that’s doable.

The necessary first step is awareness of what goes on in our own minds, being attuned enough to our own thoughts and emotions to see what brings up feelings of fear and aversion. This is the work of long and disciplined introspection.

The second step is to get to know the objects of your fears and aversions better. Get close. look carefully at their lives. See how their concerns and needs are like your concerns and needs. Allow yourself to wish them well.

A third step would be summoning the courage to see that we’re not such hot shit either; just different, with our own faults and assets, but hardly better.

When I read your question, I was confused for a moment when you said “prejudiced toward” instead of prejudiced against. Clearly you mean prejudiced against.

But it raised an interesting question to me. Is it equally bad to be prejudiced towards someone, as it is to be prejudiced against them? If you are prejudiced towards, then you will favor them, perhaps over others. Perhaps on spurious grounds.

It occurs to me that for every prejudice towards, there could be an equal and opposite prejudice against, and vice versa.

This question is difficult for me to talk about because it paints with such a broad brush. It suggests that all prejudices are inherently unfair. It seems to me that there are many grounds on which prejudice is perfectly acceptable. So, without specifying what kind of prejudice(s) you are talking about, it’s nearly impossible to answer the question in a meaningful way.

I also am struck by the last part of your question, where you ask what gives people the right to let their prejudices affect others. This use of “rights” is interesting. It suggests there are some kind of inherent rights to live free of prejudice that we are born with. This, of course, is not the case. Rights have nothing to do with it. People beat up other people until other people organize to prevent it.

It’s all about power. I don’t mean mere physical power, though. I mean the power of mutual self-interest and logic and persuasion and education. No rights exist unless you have the power to protect them.

You can’t keep your prejudices from affecting others. You are who you are. The only way to change someone is to educate them, or use other means to modify their behavior. Asking people “what gives you the right” is the powerless way to try to get something. It’s begging. It rarely works. To stop behavior that bothers you, you have to project your own power in any way you can. Sometimes a simple request is enough. Other times, you have to work much harder, organizing, and agitating, and staying in other people’s faces until they give you what you want.

We all have prejudices. We establish what we think of someone by their intial appearance and by what they say, or do, or wear before we have a chance to interact with them.

I would guess we do this as an evolved defense mechanism. If I see someone who appears scary to me, I might avoid them out of fear for my own safety.

To answer your question, what I do in RealLife is to take care before speaking. Usually I get more information about the person and can make a more considered judgement of who they are with more information.

In this forum, the goal is to answer questions based on our experience, often rapidly without having the time to interact and get more information, so the judgement, justified or not, comes out in our answers.

I say “right” because people think that are given the right to, be it by god or whomever. All prejuduices are unfair, it disregards the fact that people are individuals.

I see my question is vague, so here is a question to extrapolate from. What gives those who champion, fund, and create legislation based on their opinions and prejudices toward gays the right to do so? They can think what they want, but when my rights are infringed upon because of it, that has gone to far. Their opinions are affecting me. Why don’t they just have their feelings and leave at that? Why must their opinions affect others?

They have the right to do whatever they want with their time and their money, just as you do. They genuinely think that homosexuality is a choice and that it is wrong, and if there is no social support for gay rights, there will be fewer people choosing to be homosexual.

They are wrong, but they have the right to hold unpopular and wrong opinions.

Legislators: it’s easy. The voters gave them the right to create legislation based on prejudice. Legislators discriminate against all kinds of riff-raff. Many of their prejudices you would agree with. I think you’d all agree that a prejudice against rapists is entirely justified.

I don’t think you’ve yet gotten at what you mean. Is it rights? Or is it where does prejudice come from? Or something that you consider unreasonable prejudice?

All of us are being constrained by law at all times. We can’t run red lights. We can’t burn our trash. We can’t dump toxic chemicals down the toilet. Many people think these are unreasonable restrictions on their lives, just as you think the restriction against gay marriage is unreasonable.

The only way to change these laws is to organize and elect legislators who promise to change them. If you are asking how we can elect such legislators—that’s a great question. If you are asking about where prejudicial attitudes come from, so as to be able to better counter them, that’s a great question (one I asked on Askville, ages ago). If you are asking who else is outraged as you are about these anti-gay legislators, that’s an interesting question. However, if you want to counter these prejudices and laws, there are ways to do it. We could discuss a strategy that might work, if you like.

“All of us are being constrained by law at all times. We can’t run red lights. We can’t burn our trash. We can’t dump toxic chemicals down the toilet. Many people think these are unreasonable restrictions on their lives, just as you think the restriction against gay marriage is unreasonable.”

These laws are to protect people, not to take away or deny rights of one population; they apply to everyone. Name an equivalent law, a law that’s only purpose is to discriminate against one group, and then tell me why those who passed the law believe they have the right to oppress others with their opinions.

@tinyfaery, put yourself in the shoes of a traditional, conservative person. All your life you’ve been raised to think that homosexuality is wrong. People who choose to live a homosexual lifestyle are immoral perverts—because it is a choice.

People with that mindset think they’re creating laws to protect people. If gay marriages are legally recognized, then more people might choose to be gay, and that would not be good, at least from their point of view.

Of course, you and I recognize that that’s all based on false premises—it’s not a choice. But the people pushing for them don’t think that, and they think they’re protecting people. To them, being gay is at least as much a choice as being a murderer, embezzler, or rapist.

From our point of view this is completely wrong. But they believe they have the right to oppress others for the same reason that you and I think we have the right to have laws against murder and rape.

I am only prejudiced regarding stupid people. I try to avoid them as much as possible. ~

Seriously, I really don’t understand why people care if gay people love and marry each other. Even if you (wrongly) think being homosexual is a choice, so what? Who is it hurting? I sincerely hope we are quicker to overcome this stupidity than we were to recognize that black people and women are human, too.

When I teach World History we confront all kinds of intolerance and I explain what are the historical roots of different instances. I hope that by understanding how bigotry begins, it unmasks mistaken ideas. One day a student asked me if I was prejudiced against anything and without thinking I said ignorance.

Since one’s first response is usually the most honest, I would say the same today. My way of dealing with intolerance is to teach why it is untenable.

No one is physically or monetarily being hurt by gay rights, which are really the justification behind laws. If they are afraid of people getting hurt let’s make infidelity illegal. No one is jumping on that bandwagon.

@tinyfaery: Do you really want to understand the other point of view, or do you just want a soapbox to gripe about how ridiculous it is? Because if it’s the former, I’ll continue, but if it’s the latter, I’ll leave you to the griping.

Give me a decent answer. I have yet to hear one.

What I wanted to know is how people personally keep from doing so. Someone else started this tangent.

You asked, here—

“What gives those who champion, fund, and create legislation based on their opinions and prejudices toward gays the right to do so?”

I answered that question. They think homosexuality is a choice, and they think having those who choose homosexuality supported by having equal legal rights, including the right to marry, will remove the stigma from it that deters people from choosing to be gay. Thus they think they have not only the right, but the responsibility to champion, fund, and create that legislation.

Basically, if you think your prejudice is wrong, you get rid of it or compensate for it. If you don’t think it’s wrong, you don’t bother to keep it affecting people. I seem to recall having said that earlier too.

Which is why I asked if you were just looking for a gripe session, because it seems to me I’ve given you answers to both the questions you asked in this thread, and you have ignored them and persisted in griping.