The Prejudice Problem

While going to church this morning, NPR played a story about a Native American rights activist found here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100393116

It got me thinking about how prejudiced we are against other groups. I think a lot of it is that we set expectations for people, but don't tell them. Then we get angry when the someone from the group doesn't meet the expectation. While I guess we could go around telling everyone belonging to various groups what we expect of them, it isn't very efficient or likely that we would reach everyone. Therefore, I think instead of holding these high standards for others, we should be more tolerant of others.

We need to try to see things from another point of view. We look at things from our perspective, and only our perspective and think we have things figured out, but we don't even try to look at it another way. This morning I was thinking how silly it was that this individual on the radio was demanding more money be apportioned to the Native Americans (and only the Native Americans). Now, as I look back, maybe there is something to say about it, maybe our stimulus money would be better spent by trying to help a variety of groups rather than being beholden to one group's interests.

And while I am obviously needing to do this, the activist needs to too; we all do. We all need to try to look at things from a different perspective, if we don't, we fall into the same trap that tells us we are right and other people are wrong. When we get too entrenched in one way of looking at the world, the colors drain away into black and white. But, if we keep trying to view things differently, we see the world in it's greens, and reds, and blues; and the whites and blacks become shades within the colors.

Dustin Haider