Friday 2 February 2018

Dealing with how we and or friends may of been treated

The origins of prejudice can be many-fold as those of us who have faced it and even perhaps unthinkingly acted upon it can certainly vouch for.
Sometimes it is a prevailing view that we are brought up with such as to see those who don't share the same religious beliefs we do as a threat, to view those of certain ethnic minorities as lesser, almost children limited by design in ability or to see those with disabilities as a drain on society.
As repugnant as each and all of those opinions are the bigger thing tends to be what it is that people do with them as if merely having an prejudiced point of view were a crime I dare say most of us would be paying for it in one way or another.
Sometimes were bear one less than something we co-opted from others so much as it is the result of drawing the wrong conclusions from something that was real that involved us such as the bullying and physical assaults I experienced from 'normal' kids at junior school where amongst other things I was being falsly accuse of damaging school property by a known school bully and every other child refused to speak out even though I could not myself. In the end one girl did and was ostracized for a period for it.
It could be the verbal assaults and insults you may get from others for things you simply cannot help in the street or online.
It would be easy for me to form the view that those of you who are not disabled cannot be trusted to treat me with respect and to hide away fearful of what an encounter might bring given how those experiences (and others) left me.
The thing is I'd then be treating you little different, forever suspecting you, keeping you away, persuading others to join in cos that's what prejudice is like: it removes the individuals personality and identity and replaces one based upon an encounter with one or more others who share something in common with them and convicts them upon this collective image you have formed.
Sometimes too  a person having done something really hurtful may begin to see just how that impacted on another and yet it would be easy yet again to refuse to forgive them personally and any group you associated their actions with.
Circumstances bring us together albeit a chance encounter on the street or as one social media site or forum closes and we move to another.
How are we going to treat our new friends and neighbours?
   

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