Origins of Prejudice

I was reading an absolutely excellent post at Goldfish’s. It reminded me of a comment I got on an old post about rape. Anon said, “In my experience the majority of men cannot be trusted when alone with a woman. In fact I'm not sure there is one who can be.” That comment made me sad, not because I think it’s an unfortunate reality we live with, but because of the type of life that likely precipitated this belief about men.

I think much of our prejudices come, like Goldfish says, from received wisdom. But other prejudices develop through experiences. If the only experiences we have with one group are negative, we’ll soon learn to fear or hate that group. And how we delineate a specific group has everything to do with our prior exposure to a variety of types of people that might somehow fit together. I’ve got a story to illustrate:

When I was 17, one Friday night I went over to a friend’s house. The get-together was boring, so I decided to head home at around 10:00. This was an early night in my estimation, in June no less, so the sun had just recently set, and I had no reservations about walking home alone.

Even though it was a beautiful night out, these residential streets were completely empty of pedestrians or traffic. Walking down the sidewalk, lost in thought, a guy walked past me and sat down on one of those big green electrical whosits and tied his shoes. Only he didn’t tie up his shoes; he just sort of played with his laces a bit. His shoes were already well-tied. Hmm. Curious.

I passed him then, and he continued on his merry way right behind me. After a block, I began to feel wary of his intentions, so I spun around and asked, “Do you have the time?” As he politely answered, I memorized his face, his clothes, his watch, everything about him. I was preparing for the inevitable on this dark, deserted street. He gave me the time, then we continued walking, quickly, with him so close behind me I could feel his breath on my neck.

I was at a crossroads on my journey home. I could be home in five minutes if I took my usual route through a small forest, or I could be home in twenty minutes if I went all the way around the Mac’s Milk. I opted for the well-lit, potentially-crowded choice.

I broke into a run, and he ran along right behind me. It was kind of funny. Like we were just jogging together in a row. I’m not sure why he didn’t grab me then. I’m not a very fast runner, so it was certainly possible. Maybe he was waiting for a more opportune location.

I made it to the store and ran in panting. I watched my pursuer stare in at me as he walked by the store-front. A jock-looking guy, in a university jacket, was buying chips and pop. I approached him quietly.

“Excuse me. I’m being chased by a guy. Would you mind walking me home?”

He was annoyed, “No. I don’t know you. I’m not walking you home.”

His response surprised me, and now I was pissed, “I just need to walk out with you, so he’ll leave me alone. It won’t be that much trouble for you.”

He wasn’t falling for my womanly charms, “Get away from me. I’m not walking you.”

I scoped out the other options in the store. None really. One old guy who likely drove there, and I was in no mood to get in a stranger’s car. I waited for my mark to pay for his purchases and leave. I walked right beside him like we were best friends. Best friends having a tiff that is.

Outside the store he looked around. The parking lot was empty. “See, there’s nobody following you. Now get away. Go home on your own.”

I didn’t try to convince him further, but I wouldn’t leave his side either. I tried my trumph card, “My parents both work at the university. You’ve probably heard of them. They’ll be grateful you helped me.”

“I’m not helping you! Stop following me!” He was getting really mad. Geesh, what’s the big deal already?

He lived in the student townhouses on the corner of my street. I, in effect, had walked him home. Yet he complained the whole way, completely ungrateful for my services. I thanked him sarcastically as he ran up his steps and slammed the door shut behind him. Then I sprinted down the street.

An old habit I had as a kid walking home alone came back to me: I named all the people I knew in each house as I passed it, a means to remind myself of all the people who would help if I banged on their door or screamed right this minute. The ritual allowed me to slow my pace just a bit until I reached my own front door.

But, you might ask, doesn’t this story just prove Anon’s point? Men are not to be trusted alone with a woman or even to help when a woman’s in danger.

Not at all. The point I’m making has to do with how this episode developed some prejudices in me:

Regardless of my parent’s profession, I decided that all university jocks were assholes. I do believe this one evening altered my educational aspirations dramatically. After this night, I wanted nothing to do with anyone going to university, and I soon aligned myself with a bunch of guys in trades. Even today, I still tend to lean towards non-professionals as friends, although I eventually got over my hatred enough to become a dreaded university student myself. And I've made friends with a gym-teacher or two along the way.

My pursuer was Vietnamese. Our city had just recently experienced an influx of immigrants from Vietnam, and I had no prior exposure to anyone that looked or spoke like them. Even from television, my closest approximation were the Koreans on MASH. And here, my very first exposure to a guy from Vietnam was terrifying. I ended up reacting with a racing pulse to every person who look remotely Vietnamese for years afterwards.

Luckily prejudices can be dismantled almost as easily as they are created. In safe places, I’ve had the chance to interact with enough people with Vietnam origins to dissipate my fears. And one of my guy’s best friends was born in Vietnam. Had I met her first, I might have developed a prejudice along different lines: that all Vietnamese are hilariously funny.

But what I didn’t do, was develop a prejudice against men in general. This is because I was raised with men who I could trust to help me and not harm me. I had many male friends who were kind and gentle people. And even though I was raped as a teenager alone with a guy once, I was also not raped alone with a guy hundreds of times. In my mind, it couldn’t be the maleness of these two people that caused them to be such jerks. They must each fit a different classification. And I didn’t know any jocks or Vietnamese. So those must be the groups to avoid.

Buy why not just think of these two people as isolated examples of assholes instead of determining whichever groups they fit into to be mass assholes on a grand scale??

I think, for safety sake, when we’re endangered by a person, we sub-consciously fit them into a category so we can tell what type of person to avoid to keep ourselves safe. We want specific criterion that identifies all jerks, so we can tell clearly who's good and who's evil. It’s often a matter of numbers: at 17, about 5% of the men I knew were scary, but 100% of the jocks and 100% of the Vietnamese I knew were just awful. So, my mind determined that if I avoid university jocks and Vietnamese, I’ll be safe. But, of course, this just gives us an illusion of safety. It’s the same bad argument that suggests that if I wear concealing clothes and never walk outside at night, I’ll be safe. And it has an unfortunate side effect of keeping us from getting to know the jocks and Vietnamese, or men in Anon’s case, who aren’t jerks, thus perpetuating the prejudices forever.

Developing prejudices based on intense exposure to a few in a group is an instinctive path our mind takes to try to keep our bodies safe. But we, of the big brains, can surely override this inclination when we recognize the hazards of pre-judging anybody.