The Norms in a Prejudiced Society

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Prejudice (N):

• An adverse judgement or opinion formed beforehand or without knowledge or facts
• An irrational hostile attitude, fear or hatred towards a particular group, race or religion

One question that has always been on my mind is how easy is it for people to hold up certain ideas about a group of people they have never met before. Anytime my mother generalizes a person's behaviour or when she says something about a group of people or that one time she refused to allow me to travel to Enugu because of some prejudice she has concerning the Igbo tribe. I always ask her how she was so are you about that.

It is a general trait I understand that we tend to generalise our ideas of others based on what we have heard, hate that was passed down or fear of actually finding out that we are wrong. The most annoying thing I have heard since I started living in Enugu is that I do not behave like a Yoruba person. It is annoying because when I ask those people how many Yoruba people they have actually met, it becomes a case of hearsay. 

I know that different people would relate to what I have said and that is because for so long, we are conformed to a set prejudice or we choose to judge the world from our perspective only.

What we call truth is very often a social construction, hence the truth is most time subjective.

Social norms are behaviours considered appropriate within a social group, for example, a female kneeling to greet according to the Yoruba culture. People may have prejudiced beliefs and feelings and act in a prejudiced way because they are conforming to what is regarded as normal in the social group to which they belong.

This is seen as a negative feeling, stereotyped beliefs and the tendency to discriminate against members of a different social group.  People tend to see individual differences among members of their own groups, but they tend to see those who belong to out-groups as being all the same. Prejudices can be seen in different aspects of our society and it is made evident in various ways.

Ethnic origin

Far too often, our ethnic origin as being a source of discrimination or set apart from others. It is either people not getting jobs based on where they are from or someone else being picked over us for the sole sake of their ethnicity. Such can be seen around with the number of stereotypes flying around today with comments like, "wetin Musa no go see for gate or the belief that Yoruba people are pretenders and an Igbo man is most likely going to cheat you in a business."

Religion and beliefs

What about the discontent of people with various beliefs from us or various religions? There is a whole lot of intolerance, segregation, etc. It is a sad story, people refusing to talk to others of different religion, disapproval or that race to shut down anyone with contra ideologies from ours. 

Age

One frustrating thing I have heard is that you are a child, what do you know or I have been in this world before you so I have to be right. Society's prejudice against the younger generation is tough. What about the societal standard of life's milestones and the expectation of what is expected from you at a certain age. Tell me about the traditions that have enforced such and the amount of people that are a product of such a system.

Gender

For the longest time, there have been gender roles and measures put in place to enforce them. But we can all agree that society is unforgiving to anyone against such rigid and strict gender roles. I believe that society is doing us all a great disservice by the repression of the girl child and the strict measure on her to conform to these forced roles or the neglected boy child and the current boy crisis caused by this prejudiced society.

The list goes on and on, the ridiculous standard of measuring success, the extreme judgement on people with different sexual orientation, the way people with disabilities are treated, education, etc.

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How are these prejudices sustained?

People are taught to fear what others fear and be prejudiced against what other people are prejudiced against. The whole problem lies in people not having the correct information and because of the ambiguity is prone to make a generalization about others. 

Conformity

This is often a response to real or imagined group pressure. It is social influence involving a change in belief or behaviour to fit in with a group or an ideology of adhering to one standard or social uniformity. This can either be normative i.e changing one's behaviour to fit in with a group or informational i.e when a person lacks knowledge and looks to the group for information and direction. 

Passive socialization

I had a discussion with a friend and he mentioned that there are some things we find ourselves doing without learning, ideas and images that have somehow been planted in our subconscious, so we act in this way without question. This can be through the media, our cultures and every other influence we pick growing up.

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So how do we change these norms that are in our society?

• Be willing to learn. There is so much we do not know and the only we can know is our readiness and willingness to learn. It is not only learning something new but also unlearning the wrong things and relearning what we think we know.
• We have to recognize some of the unconscious bias we have and work on letting go of them. It is also good to ask questions about things that are puzzling from people that we are sure to have the best answers. 
• Travel and challenge your worldview. Sometimes, the best way to learn about people and get rid of stereotypes is to actually experience things for ourselves. If you are unable to travel because of finances or time, read books and experience other people's culture and lifestyle.
• Tolerance and common ground. It is important to actually begin to tolerate people's differences and also find common ground to be able to communicate better with people. We tend to forget most times that we are bad at reading people's minds.
• Acknowledge people's differences, differences based on culture, based on religion and tradition. By acknowledging such differences rather than pretending they do not exist, allows us to get rid of the need to conform, and prevents us from generalizing.

I learnt recently that we should accept the norm of living comfortably uncomfortable. This basically means going the extra mile, trying out something different, speaking against prejudice, educating someone else about such issues, making a cross-cultural friend, trying out something that scares you or oppose your viewpoint. Be careful though, this doesn't mean trying to become someone else to fit in. You can still be you and learn something new. This I believe is the way we can change the norms in a prejudiced society.

What else can we do to change the way the society is and develop it into something better, free of hate for us all? 

Drop your suggestions in the comments below.

The Estherian