Did you become more prejudice as you got older?

I’m only 19 but in the past 3 years I’ve found myself growing much more accepting of most all things. except stupid people, I have a prejudice against stupid people i need to work on

Nah I became less
I used to be like prejudiced against gay people when I was in elementary, up until as a freshman/sophomore in HS, when I met Dominic (way before I came to fluther) and some gay people in my school. That’s when I began to accept them

I was raised in a sexist, racist, homophobic household…over the years I have tried to shed most of all that my parents believe and for all the right reasons.

I have noticed that some people allow themselves to become more prejudiced, while others simply become more aware of differences and appreciative of them. And others seem to simply leave all that baggage behind.

My grandmother, who was very much a white Southern lady, was raised in a time and a dominant society that was very racist (although polite about it). Because of our complaints she did stop using the “N” word and the “S” word, replacing both with the term “Arab” (pronounced with a long A). No idea where she got that from

However, as she got into her 80’s and 90’s her prejudices seemed to fade away. She adored my husband (Asian) and her grandchildren (African-American), which was an immense relief to all of us. And she no longer seemed to classify people by race or ethnicity at all.

I become more cynical.

Seeing people for who they are instead of what they represent.

No, I’ve become much more accepting the older I get. I say live & let live. I don’t want anyone dictating MY life & I won’t do it to anyone else, either.

Part of it could also be that as time goes on more and more prejudices are revealed. For example, 50 years ago the prevailing cultural norm was that being homosexual is wrong. The Net generation is forming a new consensus on this issue, which is much more accepting than that of the baby boomers. As society progresses what wouldn’t have been seen as a prejudice before is revealed as one, which in turn makes it seem like older people are more prejudiced.

There are exceptions, of course, just venturing an explanation.

@pdworkin Even the squirrel??? :-(

Growing up with limited exposure to various cultures and differences meant that I accepted the stereotypes I saw on tv or heard from those older than me.

As I got older, moved, went away to school, worked in NYC, learned about different religions, etc.; I became less prejudiced.

Now I see that everyone is part of the human race and has similar goals and desires. I do recognize that some people are more selfish or arrogant or tolerant or hotheaded or reliable or hard-working than others, but I deal with that on an individual case by case basis. Since I have found those traits in many different types of people, I don’t see how I can be prejudiced towards any particular group.

Especially the goddam squirrel.

@pdworkin (ROFLMAO).......Well we’ll just see if I send YOU any more nuts!!!

Do you all think being prejudiced is the same as being racist?

@pdworkin Even penguins??

In most instances, I would say I have become less prejudiced as I grew up. However, there is one exception that I am not proud of. A rich group of people from a certain ethnicity has bought summer homes in our area over the years. I find it hard not to generalize from the seemingly obnoxious, entitled behavior of many of them to a dislike of the group. Is that prejudice or simply greater knowledge?

@JLeslie Yes, I do. It all falls into the same category, I think.

tbh I still don’t like fat people :P

I’ve been known to like an occasional penguin. Occasional.

@janbb I’m sure you are. I think he’s an animal hater. ;-)

@pdworkin I feel so left out. sob

@jbfletcherfan Maybe we should form an Animals Against PDworkin Society?

Yeah! We’ll be charter members…..

@janbb There are obnoxious rich people of every ethnicity. Class hatred, not ethnic hatred, OK?

Well, I think of prejudice as prejudging and racism as hatred. I think they are slightly different, but I was wondering how people were using the words.

@pdworkin That’s certainly much more acceptable to this quasi-socialist but it’s hard not to confuse the two when this group is all from the same small ethnic group.

@janbb I think you have hit on what I was talking about in the question.

A recent study shows that the lack of having positive roles for those who are different than us cause us to become less trusting of these “types”. Seeing someone different than us in a positive roll allows us to gain different perceptions, perhaps better ones, and we become more at ease with those who are different.

The Olympics are a very good example. The study showed that, for example, those who had previously not scored high in trusting African Americans, watched them wining in events had better perceptions of African Americans when retested in the study.

@jbfletcherfan Don’t want to hijack a serious thread. Why don’t you scramble up to my icefloe to discuss the society formation?

@jleslie I think you do have to keep talking to yourself (or I do) and work on not generalizing from individual behavior to the group. It’s not always easy.

@JLeslie – Racism is Prejudice, but Prejudice is not necessarily Racist. Someone can be Ageist or Homophobic or Weireded out by nose rings and tattoos.

Any attempt to assign characteristics to a group of people without looking at the individual differences is Prejudice. Racist is just a type of Prejudice that often comes with hatred, but other times displays a misunderstanding based on incomplete knowledge. Not all racists hate, they just prejudge or think certain jokes are funny.

Interesting question. I was just wondering this myself, lately.

In all honesty, I think I might not have become more prejudiced on a moral, conscious level. In reality, however, I have become more and more aware of situations in which I kind of catch myself with prejudiced thoughts. I notice myself noticing the color of the skin of the young boy that call me nasty names for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I also notice, though, our whole (Dutch) society is becoming more prejudiced and I feel almost like something is cooking.

Yesterday the news mentioned that there had been a big amount of many lost through people that were fraudulently claiming welfare. In the news this statement was followed by “most of these people were of ethnic descent”. In all honesty that scared me, considerably.

Maybe you want to take a look at this “test“https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/, developed at Harvard. You may find yourself quite biased as well.

I think being biased is unavoidable. We just need to be conscious of it and not always trust our gut feeling. Or actually distrust it.

Less prejudiced in regards to stereotypes and individuals, but more prejudiced about humans as a species. I assume things about people because I have a low opinion of the human race in general, not of certain types of people or individuals.

@whitenoise You are scared by the news report because you are afraid of the backlash against “people of ethnic descent?” That the majority might take some sort of action or develop hatred towards these groups? Or, that certain minority groups are organized and robbing the state?

There is a difference between prejudice and racist. Racist meaning that you are opposed to a race as a whole. Prejudice meaning you dislike one individual thing. I feel that i am prejudice of stupid people. As I got older, i’m 21 now, i have been able to see things a little less one sided and have also been through many different situations with a strong diversity of ethinicities. The negative situations outweigh the positive and I was “honored” enough to encounter many different idiotic people of different races. Mexican, Black, Asian, White, whatever. I lumpsum the fools among us in one group of dislike. So I guess, yeah I can see why people become more aggressive (physically or mentally) when approached by a certain group of people. I dont know if that makes any sense or not…I guess it does in my head. :P

@JLeslie
Sorry, I was typing a bit too hastily. It scares me, because these types of additions add nothing to the news item. There had been a lot of people that were fraudulently claiming welfare. They could state the amount of money, but why add “the majority was of ethnic descent”?

I never hear any news item followed by “the driver” was a male white person of pure Dutch origin. It was an uncalled for addition to the news item.

In The Netherlands, there is a strong correlation between income and ethnicity. People of ethnic descent seem to have a lot of trouble earning the same amount of money as the non-ethnc Dutch. Now just for that, it is logical that these groups of people are making more use of welfare systems. That makes it also more likely that these groups would be more often claiming welfare unjustly. Even if that were not the case, than what does it add? The media only seem to mention ethnicity when non Dutch are involved. That paints an improper picture of reality.

BTW: I saw I screwed up the link in my previous post.
Here it is again. Try it…. really enlightening.
(That is… for most people. It was for me.)

@whitenoise Same goes on here in the American media as you probably know. Is it just new immigrants who have this correlation regarding income? Usually after a generation or two ethnic groups catch up and can earn similar incomes to established groups here in America. I find people most prejudiced here in the states when the perception is generation after generation of the same ethnic group are using the system and not progressing on their own. But, America has a long history of immigration, and I am under the assumption that The Netherlands doesn’t.

Well we had the Huguenots in the sixteenth century.

But you are right… we have been inexperienced and we’ve made a lot of mistakes. It now has become the playground for very opportunistic populist politics.

@whitenoise I kind of think some of it has to do with the atitude of the new groups coming to the new country. I think the groups in America who have assimilated and adjusted best were the ones who were grateful for the opportunity in their new country and began to identify as American’s and were proud to be American’s. Again, this usually happened in the new generation that was born in USA, many time the parents were not happy as they saw their children become “Americanized.” My husband’s mother still is sometimes not thrilled with how “American” he is.

Well… when we ‘imported’ people from Northern African origin and Turkey, we were all too keen on not having them integrate. They should keep their identity and they were viewed upon as visiting. We called them “guest laborers”. It was indeed a recipe for disaster in many ways.

Interestingly, though, integration of these groups was well under way and far more positively looked upon prior 9/11. Then we started to polarize our society. Not just here in Holland, but more or less across Europe. It became “us versus them”.

I saw an intriguing documentary about five years ago. It featured a Dutch woman whose parents had been immigrants from Northern Africa. She was in her fourties and telling about how her parents were poor immigrants and worked their butts off, to get her though college and university. She had become a respected medical doctor that identified herself as Dutch of Moroccan descent. It saddened her to see her daughter now being viewed upon as a foreigner and identifying herself as a Morrocan living in The Netherlands.

Morrocan people cannot denounce their nationality so they all remain Morrocan. We now have politicians stating that criminals with a Morrocan passport should be sent back! Despite these people never having lived anywhere else but The Netherlands. This kind of simplicity feels awfully akin to what I read in my history books.

But yes…. you are also right in that people that second generation have different issues from first.

Prejudice goes away with understanding. If people get more prejudiced as they get older, it’s because they are reinforcing fundamentally flawed ways of thinking.

Less, in conjunction to the last comment!

Definitely less, but I believe hatred and prejudice are a product of the environment and mindset one surrounds him or herself with. Like @The_Compassionate_Heretic said, if the prejudice they grew up around as a child is continually reinforced by the family they live with or the company they keep, those feelings will only continue to grow and eventually consume them. On the other hand, if they are removed from or leave the hateful environment while their beliefs and views have not hardened, they will be exposed to many worldviews and angles of thinking that they never would have experienced in their ‘bubble,’ therefore opening their thought process and the way they perceive people.

I’ve grown to be less prejudiced because I broke out of the strict religious environment I grew up in, and saw the world from a completely different perspective.

Ok, interestingly what I have found from what I read above is that people who were raised with a significant amount of prejudice and racism feel much less prejudiced as adults, and people who were raised quite accepting with little thought to racial or culural differences sometimes become more aware of differences. I’m thinking that adulthood makes us more aware of inequities in society and struggles. The relative I spoke of is very much a minority in her profession where she lives and sometimes feels like she is treated unfairly, and simply get annoyed with some of the cultural differences. he is not full of hate or anything like that, she just wants everyone to get along.

I think @janbb spoke about a phenomenon that has long been observed by sociologists that people don’t mind if there are a few minorities around, but when it feels like the whole neighborhood is changing over to a different ethnic group people don’t like it, they don’t want to become the minority maybe? If it is a big mix people are less intimidated.

And, I was thinking about how “all white Iowa” as the media put it, voted for Obama, and how some seemed surprising. It did not surprise me. All white Iowa does not deal with any racial or ethnic situations so they have fewer stereotypes in their heads about different groups.

I disagree with @The_Compassionate_Heretic, I don’t think your statement is always the case. It did not seem that @janbb had a pre-existing prejudice. I know my husband was the most non-discriminating person I had ever met when I met him. He was born and raised outside of the US and not only did not have existing prejudice about race or religion, but nothing in his head about the different regions in the US, I mean he was a blank slate. This is one of the things about him I found very attractive. As we have moved around from state to state he sees why people have some prejudice. It bothers both of us. I would not say he is prejudiced, but I would say he has gathered some stereotypes in his head.

As I have gotten older, I find I have more empathy.
Jokes I used to think were funny (even though they were clearly racist), I now find just sad.

@JLeslie The whole point of acknowledging that we’re all human is based upon not prejudging them based on their ethnicity. I don’t find prejudice to be acceptable for any situation.

In the last 5 or 6 months I have developed some prejudicial feelings about white, right-wing southern Republican Evangelical Christians. That’s because I believe they would like to see me and my ilk dead.

@The_Compassionate_Heretic You’re making me think. Some might be semantics or misunderstanding in communication. I agree with your sentence, “The whole point of acknowledging that we’re all human is based upon not prejudging them based on their ethnicity. I don’t find prejudice to be acceptable for any situation.” Here is the definition on wikipedia for prejudice “A prejudice is a preconceived belief, opinion or judgment especially toward a group of people characterized by their race, social class, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age or religion.” I would say it is almost synonymous with a “stereotype.” People may have these generalizations about a group, but would not when meeting an individual. So, I agree prejudice in a “situation” is unnacceptable.

@The_Compassionate_Heretic
I think you are foregoing on the way our minds work (it’s tricky to be so explicitly implying that __I know anything__ on how our minds work, but forgive me).

Our mind is highly effective in evaluating situations. That’s its primary function. A very important tool our mind has, is the use of heuristics: simple rules of thumb that work most of the times.

What I am saying is, that it is impossible to not be prejudiced towards other people. We will expect an old man to run a little slower and not be a computer wizzard. We would expect the young girl less likely to want to play a online shooter.

These heuristics work so often so well, that it is impossible not to pick them up. It is not that one should not be prejudiced, one should realize ones prejudices and be ready to compensate for them with common sense.

I was not brought up with any of the prejudices you mention, quite the contrary. Even though my parents do have their own prejudices, I only found out about them recently (and was shocked). I think part of it is that they didn’t get a chance to pass on these ideas, and part of it that they spent far too little time with us. My moral code came from my teacher at school, and she was as good as they get.

However, as I grow older I start to form my own opinion about people, and even groups. And yes, I have become less patient with people as a whole, and certain categories specifically, at least as far as certain traits are concerned. There are certain types of girls that I wouldn’t date for example, though I might make an exception sometimes. Or certain people I might avoid, though again it’s not that concrete. But the rules are never strict and I try not to insult anyone.

@whitenoise I took a few of the tests, The Arab name one, basically concluded I don’t show preferences for people who are arab compared to others, basically neutral. And, I took the Black white tests, and I slightly favored whites or light skinned people. But with both tests when I saw a word or face I did not relate the two, I was just trying to put the right word in the right place, I don’t feel I connected the two at all, the words seemed unrelated to the picture before it to me. I could never look at a picture and guess if someone is good, bad, or evil, maybe happy, sad or joyous.. I also think I tried to go too fast. What is interesting is let’s say I have some of these ideas or stereotypes in my mind about the group, but at a conscious level do not let it interfere with how I treat people, or meet people, or get to know an individual, that might explain why I think I have no reaction to how a person looks or what ethnic background they have when I see the picture, not that I am aware of, and maybe the test does capture that.

@JLeslie Interesting test, isn’t it?
Particularly if you look at the average scores that come from the research and compare yourself. It is truly measuring at an unconscious level.

Good to see that you seem rather balanced and unbiased, but somehow I already figured you to be. ;-)

@whitenoise Oh, I didn’t compare myself to others, I was wondering about that, if we have access to the results already tabulated. I’ll have to go back to the website and look it up.

i’m only 17 now, but from what i’ve learned so far, you become a lot more accepting when you acquire more knowledge.
most prejudice arises from ignorance and fear. the more you learn, the less those things play into it.

Actually, less.

Yes.

I think as I get older I am just more jaded and mistrustful of everybody. ‘I ain’t prejudice, I hates everbody’

I was raised by parents that are very accepting of everyone and have had experiences with people of all walks of life and so I was never exposed to too many prejudices as a kid. My grandparents would (and sometimes still do) sometimes say things that, today, would be taken as racism and homophobia but that was definately down to ignorance rather than hatred. My grandfather accepts everybody for who they are but will often refer to them using a derogatory term (I have often heard him refer to a black person as a “darky” for example. Only two days ago he was telling me how much he liked “that darky singer off the TV”!) because he doesn’t realise that it is offensive. Sometimes he makes me cringe but because I know he means well I do not consider him to be racist.

I don’t think I have changed to much as I have gotten older. I have never had a reason to. I tend to be judgemental of people but this never has anything to do with skin colour, religion, sexuality etc I just let me first impression of someone’s personality determine how I feel about them straight away. I really need to do something about this because usually it is a fault with me and not the other person.