I'm from the south. I was born and mostly raised in north Florida. That got me to see prejudice from both sides of the fence. When I was in the 3rd grade my family moved to Milwaukee. I had a pretty good accent and the other kids picked up on it quick. "Hillbilly Goat, Hillbilly Goat" they would call and tease. I got into a lot of fights because of it. Then in 1967 riots broke out there. When it was over my family decided to move back to Florida.
When I was in the 7th grade in Jacksonville Florida, we lived in a poor neighborhood. The school I went to had mostly black kids in attendance. Every day there was trouble between the few white kids and the black kids. I remember walking down the hall and a black kid said to me "Give me a nickel". I replied "Try and take it". Then the fight began.
My point is, north or south, prejudiced was rampant then, and it is just as rampant now. The only difference now is what I call "closet bigotry". The Republican Party is guilty of it. It shows in the way they have fought President Obama every step of the way ever since he became President. It is a part and parcel of the Tea Party too, and a lot of Southern Fundamentalists Christian thought. I know this is true because of the adults I was exposed to as a child in the deep south. I remember going to George Wallace rallies, and churches where people fell onto the floor in convulsive trance. I know that the north is no better too because of a black friend I had in Long Island who had a bottle smashed against his head, just because of the color of his skin.
When I look back, I find I am thankful I seen all that and experienced that first hand. It helped me gain prospective and become enlightened. I know first hand how low people can go. Even my own father used to brag about grandpa being a leader in the KKK. I never went to a rally, but I heard stories. Now I can relate and try to enlighten others as to why all this is primitive and destructive.
As an atheist I think I can have a prospective of one outside the box now. A person who was once inside the box, but some how was able to divorce myself from it. I've seen Islamic extremism and Christian extremism. I've seen white prejudice, and black prejudice. I have seen, and I think this is extremely important, Muslim, Christian, white, black and Arab, people of all races and cultures doing a lot of good too! That is the only thing that has kept humans from ripping civilization apart. Sadly, that goodness is being replace by fear.
Most people want to be friends. They want to go to work, raise a family, have fun and live in peace. The thing is, a few evil, power hungry, selfish persons sow fear and suspicion for their own gain. It isn't just white people, or black people or any other group or culture. Every race and culture has these elements of childish self interests. Hate mongering and fear spreading units inside of all of our peoples are at fault.
That is why I focus on just the human. Humans are all the same as far as I'm concerned. They all have the same basic needs and wants. The only difference is artificial constructs invented by them. Let me give an example of how people are basically the same and have build artificial constructs called culture. If I go to any person on the planet. Even a person who lives in the jungles of South America, who has never met a person from a high tech society, and I smiled at them, they would immediately know what that meant. It doesn't matter the culture, the race, or any of that, every person on the planet has that basic communication. A frown is a frown, and a smile is a smile, and ALL humans know what it means.
Every other aspect of human society and culture was built from the primitive. Have you ever seen a baby take something from another? Adults are no better. In human past when resources ran low, raiding parties were formed and they would take from the next village over. In order to get past that basic understanding of a smile, or the look of fear, culture is dragged into it. "They don't have the same culture. I don't understand it so it must be bad. If it is bad it is okay to kill and take.". These things tell me that prejudice in any form is a primitive mind set, dragged into our culture from our remote past. It is unenlightened thought, fostered and nurtured with fear. Fear raising to destroy the inhibition to harm one another. Persons manipulating other persons for their own gain, be it ego or material.
All this is one of the reasons I do not endorse religion of any kind. Even though I support them who practice faith in gods peacefully, I think it is all to easy to use it, and to become influenced by it to harm other humans. It is another thing that is an artificial construct invented by humans. Like I said before, all humans know what a smile is, but all humans do not know what Jesus, Allah, Buddha or any of the rest is.
If persons embraced logic, reason and knowledge the majority of human problems caused by prejudiced would disappear. Humans who are enlightened know there is no real differences in humans other than cultural, and those cultural differences are artificial. Like that wearing of a hijab, or the not wearing of it. Like the bishop with his uniform, or the pope with his. Or a nun with their habit, every last bit of it is added on artificial constructs invented by human culture. Every last bit of it doesn't mean beans compared to the human under it all, and that human is what people need to see. Every human needs to look deeper than the uniform. The reason being that all humans are the same.
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