Posted by llrrrpp on August 31, 2006, at 10:38:00
In reply to Re: Anybody seen Crash yet? » TexasChic, posted by ClearSkies on August 31, 2006, at 9:48:16
One thing about prejudice that I don't like is that it exists on a subconscious level. We categorize people even before we are aware of who they are or what they do.
Certainly we can overcome these categorizations with a level of conscious control, but it takes a lot of effort. When we are overwhelmed or distracted, or just on auto-pilot, we often do things that our conscious mind would not like to acknowledge.
And sometimes, despite having a good friend of a different race for many years, I still have a hard time including her in my category. Sometimes the human mind emphasizes differences, and downplays similarities. I'm sure it helps most of our everyday cognition (it's easier to remember things that seem distinctive, it's easier to solve problems that seem discrete and separate), but in the case of society at large, I wish that race were not one of those dimensions that is so obvious.
For instance, when my Japanese friends point to people and say "She's mandarin, he's korean, he's from Okinawa, she's Filipino, She's Cantonese" i think- wow. I can't perceive those differences easily at all! I just see- E. Asian faces.
And then there's the unfortunate consequence of categorical perception that ingroups (people of my race) tend to be viewed as individuals, whereas outgroup members tend to be viewed as more similar to each other. One consequence of this is that it's harder for me to recognize and remember an E. Asian face. In my mind, I just remember some generic prototype E. Asian face. And that's unfortunate. It leads to insecurity- what's her name again? Wait- am I sure I've met her before? Where did I see her? And it leads to more snap judgments when I don't have time to ponder these decisions. I treat this person like I would treat any E. Asian.
Is it true that if you don't have anything nice to say, not to say anything at all?
-ll
poster:llrrrpp
thread:680597
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20060819/msgs/681700.html