Let's face it: we all have prejudices.
Even if you're a member of the ACLU, defender of Civil Rights, you consider yourself a modern, open-minded, global citizen, you may still have some little prejudices that you might not be even aware of. But they are there.
And I'm not even talking about Race here. It can be a bias about sexual orientations, musical tastes, fashion, or even career choices!
Take me for instance: I hate bus drivers. HATE. THEM. But that's because I live in Mexico city, and I see the way they behave around here, disobeying the traffic laws, driving recklessly and causing many accidents. So I have a clear bias against bus drivers; some goes for cops for that matter.
So why is that? Why is it that it is so difficult to erradicate all these nasty prejudices that have caused so many wars and suffering since the dawn of time?
I've been thinking about it lately, and through one of my personal interests, I've come up with a theory that could help explain it. the personal interest I'm referring to is... Cartoons.
Yes, Cartoons! Let's do an experiment you & I: pick up a piece of paper and a pencil (it's all right if you don't think you can't draw, any human being can doodle), and now draw a circle or oval. Now draw two black circles in the upper middle part of the circle, and then draw a vertical line below those two circles right at the middle of them, and after that an horizontal line below the vertical one.
You can show your drawing to nearly every human being in the world, and they will say it is a "face".
Now, you could add a little black square below the vertical line that is the "nose", and a curve that goes from the top of the circle to the left, passing just above the "eye" of your doodle. Voila! You just turned your face into a Hitler caricature. Show your drawing to your friends or coworkers and I bet many if not most of them will recognize it as Hitler, even though we have only add two very simple features to our generic primitive face.
Isn't amazing how we humans can pick up these appearances with just the simplest and fewest of elements? It is my opinion that, in fact, this is the way our brain processes the world we live in.
You see, our senses are always picking up myriads of bits of information any given moment. Were our brain to interpret all this flood of info it would be a staggering job, not to mention highly inefficient—our primate ancestors would have been eaten by predators if they tried to interpret all the things perceived by their senses!
So I think that what our brain does is to look for shortcuts. Categorize and sort out the most prominent and relevant of information in the most efficient manner possible. Kind of making a "mental sketch" of the objects or scenes around us.
That's why when we meet a person for the first time we first pay atention to the most prominent features of his/her physical appearance: his nose may be slightly bigger than yours, or her lips may be thinner. His eyes might be closer together or her ears rounder. The moment we see someone for the first time our brain is making a mental sketch of that person, using the most prominent differences between that person and yourself as a point of reference; this mental sketch is then filed and stored, ready to be pulled out the moment we need it (i.e. when we meet the same person again, in order to recognize him/her).
And obviously, this must have been a very useful feature on ancient times, when recognizing someone as an outsider of the clan/tribe/village could be the difference between life and death.
These mental sketches are applied not only on visible physical attributes, but also on cultural ones too, and here's when things get a lot messier. We use the mental sketches to make a quick reference about how someone from another country or religion differs from you (e.g. "The French like to eat cheese", or "Muslims don't eat pork".
There's another name for the cultural mental sketches. We call them stereotypes.
And the thing about stereotypes is that, unlike the other mental sketches we've been discussing —that are based on direct first-hand experience— these ones can be transmitted or learned through many different cultural channels. They are learned from the most tender years, in the simplest forms, like jokes or table anecdotes. And with the use of technology, stereotypes can be more widely disseminated.
Soon the stereotypes are part of the psychological baggage of any person, and are a very big inffluence on how that person perceives the world around it.
And stereotypes can also be manipulated with a definite purpose in mind, by a person or group who seek a benefit from it. Such as starting a war or eliminating competition; many of history's tragedies are the result of twisted stereotypes (do I really need to give examples?)
So I think the first thing we have to do is acknowledge that, despite how useful our mental sketches sometimes are, they are nonetheless A LIE. Our own brain lies to us, it tries to give us a simplified version of the world, it tries to tell us that a circle with a couple of lines is a human face; but we must remember that no matter how smart we think we are, we never ever get a full picture of things.
Likewise with stereotypes. We can't use stereotypes to judge the feats and attributes of a single individual. that is completely unfair, not to mention stupid.
Maybe a person can never get rid of all its prejudices. They are like beasts that start small and cute, that we feed over the years until they become true monsters. So all we have to do is first admit we have them, and fight them every day of our lives.
We may never slay them, but I do believe the struggle itself yields its own rewards.