This weeks dinner guest Ariela Keysar spoke about combating prejudice on campus and encouraged students to share some of their stories. Students of multiple origins were represented and enlightened others on how prevalent prejudice could be, even on a diverse campus like Cornell.
According to Wikipedia, prejudice is “forming an opinion before becoming aware of the relevant facts of a case”. These generalizations could be thought of as non hurtful sometimes, but in hindsight could affect others deeply. There are many ways to combat prejudice and many were spoken about during our dinner.
As a research specialist on this subject area, our information was recorded and used to be further analyzed by Ariela. It was fascinating to not only be a part of a research study, but also get a better perspective about prejudice on campus.
According to your definition of prejudice, I think it must be a hard distinction to know when prejudice is necessary and good and when it is hurtful and bad. I mean, surely we couldn’t live our lives effectively without forming fast opinions about things before we have the time to find out all of the facts? If I see a man while I’m walking home alone at night I might try to let him pass me or go a different way and then I have formed an opinion of him as a potential threat and acted on that, but at the same time I could have very well made a very wise decision as staying near someone who you don’t know their intentions could physically harm you. And this would be prejudice against men. And it might be hurtful as well. But I do think that it is necessary prejudice all the same (even thought the word sounds so negative in itself). Maybe we should be looking for another word (like bias? would that work better in this context?) or at least try to see the complexity of the nature of prejudice and of forming opinions that we haven’t based on facts that we know are true. What do you think?