Question

In a posting of at least 350 words, please tell of a time when you experienced prejudice (towards someone who you were with). Include the following at a minimum: what happened, how did it make you feel, what should have happened, and what could be done to make sure that it does not occur again.

Answer 1

Answer

The world today is leading to advancements and progressing every few seconds of the day. And so is our thinking. The modernity today accompanies, modern and unbiased attitudes amongst individuals. But the main questions is, Are we really not prejudiced? Unfortunately, we are. There are so many instances in our day-to-day lives that force us to get prejudiced. Like many other people, I hold modern views and put myself far away from believing these pre-held notions and beliefs. But subconsciously, unconsciously or sometimes even consciously we tend to believe and form opinions about or against something or some person. There is an incident that occurred in my life and its after-effects were really frightening. An important lesson and reality were learned that day. Last year in September, I was traveling from my hometown to a different state which was thousands of kilometers far. My flight was in the early morning. I got into the flight, and calmy settled down. It was still dark. The passenger next to me was a Muslim, dressed in a beautiful traditional outfit. Now before anyone makes or hold prejudice against me, let me clarify that I do not discriminate or outcast anybody on the basis of religion and I have a lot of friends who belong to the Muslim community. It was a long journey, So once the plane reached cruising altitude, I turned on my laptop and there are usually a lot of movies in my laptop and I started glancing at them and made a decision to watch a movie named, American Sniper because mostly I had seen all other movies. American Sniper is a biographical war drama. The movie starts with a story wherein the U.S Military tries to bring an end to the horrors of the Taliban Leaders. The horrors of the frightening Taliban leaders were so frightening and brutal that I decided to stop watching it and leave for some other time. The person sitting next to me who was a Muslim himself looked at me and smiled. Then he looked at another Muslim man, and they both exchanged smiles and glances. I got very uncomfortable and all those thoughts started to pop-up in my mind. Seconds later I asked myself, am I really doing this. He is just another man, and how could I be so prejudiced, I told myself. But who can overtake "Brain"? My brain kept on making me think, everytime they moved, looked at each other, smiled, nodded, that today something really bad would happen. The whole long journey was so frightening for me that I badly wished that I reach as fast as possible. So the plane landed and obviously, nothing happened. As soon as we got down, the passenger who was sitting next to me looked at me and smiled. I abruptly smiled back. When I reached the room, I realized that the last smile actually had some message for me that not all Muslims are terrorists. There could have been any other man who could hurt us or might have plotted something bad and he could have been of some other religions as well, but why Muslims? Why do we always end up targeting Muslims? I really regretted that journey of mine. Maybe we believe that we aren't prejudiced at all but subconsciously we are. Our brain stores a lot of detailed information and lets it out in circumstances wherein we are forced to act prejudiced, unintentionally or intentionally and knowingly or unknowingly. That's the reality we must accept.