Prejudice never serves anyone well. Those who are prejudiced against are obviously worse off, but I would posit so are those who express the prejudice. Why?
And is bias the same as as prejudice? In my mind they are not, but looking at various articles and definitions it seems most people view them as similar in intent if not in degree. That is, people view prejudice as being worse than bias, but they look down on both.
So let’s contrast prejudice with the more benign preference. I have a preference for chocolate ice cream, and I prefer not to have vanilla. Is there anything wrong with that? Of course not, it’s simply a personal preference, and we all have our preferences.
What is prejudice then?
Prejudice can be an affective feeling towards a person based on their perceived group membership. The word is often used to refer to a preconceived (usually unfavorable) evaluation or classification of another person based on that person's perceived personal characteristics, such as political affiliation, sex, gender, gender identity, beliefs, values, social class, age, disability, religion, sexuality, race, ethnicity, language, nationality, culture, complexion, beauty, height, body weight, occupation, wealth, education, criminality, sport-team affiliation, music tastes or other perceived characteristics.
Preference is choosing something because you like the individual item. Prejudice is excluding something because you dislike the group it belongs to. It rarely has to do with the individual, it’s the individual’s group you dislike.
So previous immigrants dislike newer immigrants. Northerners dislike southerners (in country after country). Easterners dislike westerners. Dark-skinned people dislike white-skinned people, and vice-versa. Always it’s group membership.
“Those people…” [plural, group membership]
What makes this self-defeating? An ancient principle that we are stronger together:
Why do more populous countries do better in the Olympics? Because they have more population to choose from, and there is strength in numbers. If you deliberately exclude part of your population, by definition you are making yourself weaker. It is self defeating to do this to yourself.
Have preferences based on individual behavior, not group identity. Dislike a person because he says or does something that you find offensive. But don’t dislike her before you ever see her do or say anything. That’s judging a book by its cover, and we authors know never to do that, right?
The principle is we are stronger together, so why would you ever deliberately choose to weaken your society by being prejudiced against a group?
Finally, and to specifically address race prejudice, you know how it’s not the skin color, language, or national identity that truly matter to most people? Do this thought experiment: imagine that other-skinned person growing up in your home, going to school with you, graduating college with you, doing the same sort of work as you, rooting for the same teams you do, enjoying the same restaurants you do, using the same idioms you do. Would the skin color matter then? No.
We are most comfortable with other people who share our socio-economic class. That’s it. All the rest are excuses. Other-skinned persons who share the same socio-economic class have far more in common than does a rich person and a poor person who share the same skin color.
The other compelling thought experiment is to imagine what it might be like in the other person’s shoes, faced with those prejudices, which works for different socio-economic statuses. Both thought experiments build empathy which is so important. When we get to know somebody who is in some way different than to us and hear their stories without being defensive that our hearts open a little more. Loved this post, thank you Nick!