Quote: (08-09-2016 04:08 PM)Days of Broken Arrows Wrote:
Not to go off-topic here, but when you suffer wrongs again and again from the same group and come to dislike that group, that's not prejudice.
Excellent excellent point.
Many people confuse operant conditioning with prejudice.
I would go one even further, that even when you are radically against racism or prejudice of any kind, when you are constantly mistreated by members of a particular race, or sex, or anything, really, there is a very good chance that in the heat of the moment, the operant conditioning will win.
It explains why there are so many conflicts between black people in the U.S. and the police. Black people have more negative experiences with police, and police have more negative experiences with black criminals than people who aren't in law enforcement.
So when either sees the other, it is the bell that precedes the meat, leading to a particular kind of salivation.
It is an almost intractable problem.
In fact, one could say that one of the highest measures of moral behavior is giving other people the benefit of the doubt no matter what your conditioning, and that entails a heroic act of will at the time it is happening.
Now, to get this topic back on track.
I had a grandparent who was raised in a time and a culture when white people of her experience believed that black people weren't as intelligent as white people.
She (it wasn't a grandfather, it was a grandmother, but I am trying to inch back to the topic at hand.) loved to watch football, and the Dallas Cowboys were her favorite team.
I went over to her house once and I saw her sitting in her favorite chair in the corner looking completely discombobulated. I said, Grandma, what's wrong?
And she said, I always thought Negros were slow, but I was watching Tony Dorsett being interviewed, and he is smart. He is really smart.
It was like you could see a belief being changed on the spot.
But she was a tough old bird, and willing to face facts and get on with life. An attitude like that, the willingness to change long held beliefs when the facts contradict them, is the sign of a sort of character that is slipping away these days.
Ignorance, conditioning, oversimplification, these things are not the same thing as evidence of racism at all, or sexism or whatever, they are merely the mental artifacts of being a limited human being, and what separates them from chauvinisms of all kinds, is the willingness to change when you are proven wrong.