The answer here is probably yes, but i'll ask anyways.

But anyhow-
If you have no prior prejudices against xyz group, and after several years of repeat experiences from many different members of that group, you start thinking in what would normally be prejudicial terms except you have nothing but experience forming those opinions.

Example:
There are 1000 purple polka dotted people , and a guy named Bob. Initially Bob has met none of these people, and has absolutely no opinion on what they're like or should be like. Later - Bob has met a little under 50 of them and every time, has the same problems with them - they slur their words, drool on their shirts, and spit (none of which are qualities that Bob likes or even tolerates). is it prejudice and wrong then, when Bob starts to wonder and perhaps assume that in all reality most of the 1000 are probably drooling, spitting, slurring idiots with whom he wants nothing to do with, and stops doing buisness or socializing with them. He doesnt opressthem, or encourage others to share his views.

8/13/2006 12:45:06 PM

i dont think there is anything wrong with what bob is doing.

8/13/2006 12:46:48 PM

prej·u·dice
1.
1. An adverse judgment or opinion formed beforehand or without knowledge or examination of the facts.
2. A preconceived preference or idea.
2. The act or state of holding unreasonable preconceived judgments or convictions. See Synonyms at predilection.
3. Irrational suspicion or hatred of a particular group, race, or religion.
4. Detriment or injury caused to a person by the preconceived, unfavorable conviction of another or others.

According to these definitions, I do not believe that Bob is prejudiced against the polkadotted people because he has reasonable prior experience to make a judgement call.

However, it may be considered prejudice against say the 51st polkadotted person that he meets because he has a preconceived idea about this person based solely upon polkadottedness.

8/13/2006 12:56:55 PM

No.

8/13/2006 12:58:15 PM

I am prejudiced against fat white chicks who wear gowns when they go out.

8/13/2006 12:59:17 PM

The only thing you know with certainty is that the purple polka dotted people are purple and have polka dots. Those facts do not cause them to slur their words, drool on their shirts, and spit, unless ALL of the aforementioned traits are symptoms of some weird, rare disease.

That aside, inferring anything about them other than that they are purple and polka dotted is pre-judging.

8/13/2006 1:01:23 PM

bottombaby- if it's prejudice against person 51- then what should bob do?

^^ well seeing as how I'm not in that group, get out of my thread.

[Edited on August 13, 2006 at 1:01 PM. Reason : .]

8/13/2006 1:01:38 PM

8/13/2006 1:01:41 PM

Bob should recognize that though he may have some legitimate basis for expecting person number 51 to drool, spit, etc, that he cannot know with certainty (like Bobby said) that number 51 will do these things. So expecting number 51 to do these things is not fair. Treat number 51 just as you would a non-polkadotted person. Hopefully, number 51 will be the person that proves that not all polkadotted people are alike and it will help Bob overcome his prejudice.



. . .but he shouldn't be surprised when he gets spit in his eye.

8/13/2006 1:06:57 PM

Its funny how people attribute good traits to the person's character but attribute bad traits to his/her race,gender ... etc

8/13/2006 1:27:42 PM

bottombaby nailed it.

Quote :

"According to these definitions, I do not believe that Bob is prejudiced against the polkadotted people because he has reasonable prior experience to make a judgement call. "

8/13/2006 2:15:46 PM

yes, this is not a profound question.

8/13/2006 2:44:33 PM

Quote :

"Treat number 51 just as you would a non-polkadotted person."

Racist.

Quote :

" If you have no prior prejudices against xyz group, and after several years of repeat experiences from many different members of that group, you start thinking "

That's pussy if you're scared of becoming a prejudiced against a certain group, if you believe the qualities of said people don't exist in the first place. One could further argue, tho why're you discussing it then.

[Edited on August 13, 2006 at 3:07 PM. Reason : :/]

8/13/2006 3:04:23 PM

How is treating "51 just as you would a non-polkadotted person" racist? That's just stating to treat everyone the same with or without the dots.

8/13/2006 3:58:14 PM

its not racist. however 50/1000 is a fairly small sample. bob is in fact a racist.

8/13/2006 4:32:58 PM

Yes, another opportunity to explain my Pocahontas philosophy:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=TkV-of_eN2w

Quote :

"You think I'm an ignorant savage And you've been so many places I guess it must be so But still I cannot see If the savage one is me Now can there be so much that you don't know? You don't know ... You think you own whatever land you land on The Earth is just a dead thing you can claim But I know every rock and tree and creature Has a life, has a spirit, has a name You think the only people who are people Are the people who look and think like you But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger You'll learn things you never knew you never knew Have you ever heard the wolf cry to the blue corn moon Or asked the grinning bobcat why he grinned? Can you sing with all the voices of the mountains? Can you paint with all the colors of the wind? Can you paint with all the colors of the wind? Come run the hidden pine trails of the forest Come taste the sunsweet berries of the Earth Come roll in all the riches all around you And for once, never wonder what they're worth The rainstorm and the river are my brothers The heron and the otter are my friends And we are all connected to each other In a circle, in a hoop that never ends How high will the sycamore grow? If you cut it down, then you'll never know And you'll never hear the wolf cry to the blue corn moon For whether we are white or copper skinned We need to sing with all the voices of the mountains We need to paint with all the colors of the wind You can own the Earth and still All you'll own is Earth until You can paint with all the colors of the wind"

Though, it is considered prejudice. It's not neccesarily wrong.

Bob did the right thing. If he doesn't like those things then he should just try to avoid them. If he does run into them he should do his best and move along.

As long as Bob understands that they don't necessarily like it when he sneezes, picks his nose, and jumps 3 times randomly every other minute. Both parties should respect each others opinions and views in a peaceful manner.

[Edited on August 13, 2006 at 4:46 PM. Reason : harmony/peace = painting with all the colors of the wind]

8/13/2006 4:35:36 PM

When you have a ratio of 50/1000 then it starts to become reasonable to stereotype such a group. But for say... 500/10,000,000 you would still have to try and restrain from making rash judgments.

8/13/2006 5:30:14 PM

LadfWolff, your analogy doesn't work. It's an oversimplification.

In real life this sort of thing doesn't happen. What's more likely is that Bob doesn't know any purple people closely. Sure he might wave to them on the way to work, but none of them are his neighboors or friends. He's seen them on TV spitting and drooling, but he's never known any of them well enough to disprove it. So he already has a preconceived notion of what PP are like.

One day Bob gets a job as a waiter, where he has to deal with and serve PP on a daily basis. And oh the horror, his first table of PPs are the drooling, spitting morons he has come to expect. Bob's prejudices have just become even more firmly cemented in his mind.

Now, when humans decide that things are a certain way we tend to cling to that notion come hell or high water. And now that Bob's ideas about PP have been "proven," he will look for confirmation of his belief and ignore any evidence to the contrary. If he has a table of very nice, non-spitting PPs, he will most likely forget about it. And when he meets stereotypical PPs, he will vividly remember the incident and describe it to his friends.

So LadyWolff, you need to ask yourself. Has every single person in this group done the exact same thing? Or are you searching out behavior to prove to yourself that you're right about group xyz.

8/13/2006 5:38:19 PM

mad props to Nerdchick

i think i just became a better person

8/13/2006 6:04:22 PM

Quote :

"In real life this sort of thing doesn't happen. What's more likely is that Bob doesn't know any purple people closely."

She's giving an example, what's more likely is it's a possible scenario!

You idiots who're delving into this like a lead floor should look at it for what it is. People are learning from what they know, when they find something different they form a different hypothesis. Bob the purple people eater knows a customary manner, when others don't portray it he finds a problem.
He then should reanalyze the situation and inform them of their customs negative effect, which WOULD BE RACIST, PREJUDICED, BLAH BLAH, KKK.

Of course we could be like Nerdchick, the dude just hasn't gotten jiggy with them, and when he does they're all cool together.

8/13/2006 6:05:33 PM

LadyWolff: we all hate black people. don't worry.

8/13/2006 6:09:35 PM

I thought purple people was a euphemism for fat chicks?

8/13/2006 6:10:34 PM

i thought it was for honkies

i fucking hate honkies

8/13/2006 6:11:24 PM

Quote :

"People are learning from what they know, when they find something different they form a different hypothesis. "

Did you even read my post? My whole point is that people hold onto their prejudices in spite of contrary examlpes.

8/13/2006 6:18:57 PM

Yah, but it seems you quoted mine and still didn't understand it???

That's an examlpe of people holding onto beliefs despite what others say.

8/13/2006 6:45:20 PM

well it's not my fault that you are unable to communicate your thoughts to others

8/13/2006 6:48:28 PM

Say he was looking for an employee as a sales person. A sales person can't be a drooler. But say he sees the applications and there is a Polka Dotted person that he has not yet met. He must not throw that application aside because it's a Polka Dotted person because he does not know if that specific person drools. Then it would be prejudiced. So he cannot gate ppl on being polka dotted, he must gate them on drooling, etc.

[Edited on August 13, 2006 at 6:49 PM. Reason : .]

8/13/2006 6:49:36 PM

Not that i'm discounting what you said Nerdchick, but yes, the example was a very much oversimplified thing, but then, examples usually are.

8/13/2006 7:03:13 PM

Quote :

"well it's not my fault that you are unable to communicate your thoughts to others"

You're being prejudiced with that attitude.

8/13/2006 7:11:20 PM

are you trying to justify racism or is there some other point i'm missing?

8/13/2006 7:37:33 PM

i thought it was only trying to justify stereotyping, not racism

8/13/2006 7:39:00 PM

ah ok i'll even go with that - just justifying stereotyping

8/13/2006 7:46:58 PM

If you could scientifically prove that polka dotted people were guaranteed to do the functions you described, then the conclusion would not be prejudiced.

I just don't understand why you hate black people.

8/13/2006 11:20:59 PM

there's a reason stereotping exists, it seems to me like a primal instinct.

example:

caveman joebob finds a red mushroom and eats it, then gets explosive diarrhea. the next day, caveman joebob finds a green mushroom and eats it, and also gets diarrhea. he finds a plaid mushroom the next day, and gets diarrhea again. so he just assumes that mushrooms will give him the shits, and doesn't eat them anymore. what he doesn't know is though many, many mushrooms do cause rectal cacophony, the yellow mushroom does not...

point being, alot of the time, stereotypes come from decent reason. of course there are exceptions, maybe the stereotype is wrong in the first place... but it all goes back to finding common characteristics of things that can harm us and avoiding them.

8/13/2006 11:21:53 PM

Quote :

"caveman joebob finds a red mushroom and eats it, then gets explosive diarrhea."

I stopped here.

8/13/2006 11:22:35 PM

One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.

If you have had nothing but bad experiences with a certain type of person (woman, man, black, white, mexican, christian, hindu, muslim, etc) over and over again each time you have dealt with them then you would be foolish not to temper your judgments based on past experiences. That's a big part of growing up, realizing that not everyone is a good person saves you a lot of trouble down the road. In fact, you can be better off just avoiding entire groups of people. I for one will never interact with white trash if I can help it (yeah, I can tell white trash when I see it). Sure there may be some lovely people who live in trailer parks but the risk outweighs the reward of dealing with them. Same thing for ghetto as fuck black people. I have black friends, but you won't see them on a Maury Povich paternity episode.

8/13/2006 11:29:33 PM

Has Bob ever wondered why he only meets purple polka dotted people who slur their words, drool on their shirts, and spit?

8/14/2006 12:24:27 AM

I heard that he was a polka-dotted-person lover. We don't like your kind around here.

8/14/2006 1:44:46 AM

If you could scientifically prove that polka dotted people were guaranteed to do the functions you described, then the conclusion would not be prejudiced.

I just don't understand why you hate Duke lacrosse players.

8/14/2006 10:25:11 AM

this makes me think ...


I saw a one-eyed one-horned flying purple people eater

8/14/2006 10:36:35 AM

some of you are confusing prejudice with racism (or whatever other -ism is the case). prejudice, in and of itself, is comparatively very benign.

8/14/2006 11:57:46 AM

meh, not really

Quote :

"Same thing for ghettoas fuck black people. "

8/14/2006 12:08:11 PM

oh yes it is.

everyone has prejudices. it's when you let those prejudices lead you to discriminatory behavior that it's racism, and that's when it's a problem.

8/14/2006 2:50:11 PM

One of the homeschool kids from my swim team recently moved to Ohio. I talked to her the other day and she said that in the Midwest there are a lot less "weird rapper dudes"

I was like, lol you mean black people?

8/15/2006 4:04:26 PM

Sometimes it is ok to be prejudiced. Like for instance, I'm prejudiced against convicted serial killers, so I wouldn't hang out with them.

Does it mean they're going to kill and eat me, no, but I haven't a reasonable suspicion that they might.


If that's prejudice...then its ok in instances like that.

8/15/2006 4:49:51 PM

bob doesn't like blk ppl......racist

8/15/2006 5:30:25 PM

no, it's postjudice

8/16/2006 11:37:47 AM