The one concept that stood out to me the most was
the cognitive biases used to maintain prejudices. I related to this because for
me personally, my personality is very shy, quiet, and reserved. I have been
told on more than one occasion that I come across snobby or stuck up, but the
truth is I’m just shy, and I think especially when I was in high school it also
was the group I hung out with that got me that label. It is easy for people to
judge one another by the way we think people act, but we have to remember that
we are all humans and even though we may come off a certain way we shouldn’t
judge. This easily happens to perceive people in certain ways by the group they
hang out with, but we have to remember to keep an open mind because we don’t
want others to judge us as well.
There is the lamest saying on the planet that goes something like this “you are who you hang out with” and unfortunately we, as a culture, usually live by it. It doesn’t matter if you live in a culturally diverse area, or in a primarily single culture area, from a young age kids are taught to put people into groups. It doesn’t matter where you come from, at one point or another you have heard the terms “jocks”, or “druggies”, or some other click name. If there is a child who looks to be from a “bad” or “poor” neighborhood there are parents out there who will take their kids away from the situation. When kids are young they don’t care about economic status, or what sports the other kid plays. Being a Cub Scout or Girl Scout is a fun activity, not a social binder to be made fun of. Being made fun of for something you love to do, or who you hang out with is never a good feeling, and guilty by association is not what this country is supposed to be about, but this is what it has come down to.
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