Reflection On Prejudice

For my composition on prejudice, I gained some inspiration from the book "To Kill a Mockingbird", using the topic of prejudice and discrimination against the dark-skinned (derogatory: Negroes). The main type of discrimination/prejudice in the story is the social one as the protagonist (I, a Bangladeshi) was prejudiced by pedestrians on the pavement. This shows that prejudice and discrimination are very common and they are detrimental to the victim's psychological being. I also conveyed the message that those who hold prejudices against others should put themselves in the latter's shoes and understand how it feels to be prejudiced.

The lesson which Mrs Raj conducted was quite fascinating and interesting for me as she helped us to differentiate and explain prejudice, discrimination and stereotypes.
I was confused with the terms at first, but after Mrs Raj explained them in detail using the powerpoint, I could understand them much better. Firstly, prejudice is the thought or opinion towards a group of people without having the facts straight, while discrimination is the act of ostracisation towards a group of people which was caused by prejudice. Lastly, stereotypes are generalisations applied on groups of people simply because of an example by one or few persons in the group. We also came up with examples of prejudice, discrimination and stereotypes in our daily lives and we were surprised that some of them are actually what we had done, without knowing that they belonged to them.

In my opinion, I think prejudice, discrimination and stereotypes should not be applied against a population or an individual as they could easily affect a person or group's psychological being. They may think that they do not belong to the society, thus leading to further isolation. It is also likely for them to be treated unfairly by others. The worst thing is that they were deprrived of chances to explain themselves most of the time, so their opinions and feelings will be bottled up. I hope that all of us can look from the perspectives of the targets of prejudice, discrimination and stereotypes, so that we will be able to better understand their detrimental effects, and then avoid carrying them out.