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charliesmum ([personal profile] charliesmum) wrote2009-10-16 08:39 am
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There was this PSA on when I was a little girl.

It was a boy and his grandpa fishing on a lake. The boy says to his grandfather 'What does prejudice mean?' cutely mangling the word.

Grandpa asks why the boy wants to know, and the boy responds by telling him his 'Jewish friend' Seth (or whatever, it was 30-some years ago) said he was prejudiced.

Grandpa gently tells the little boy that he is, indeed, prejudiced because otherwise he'd have just said 'my friend Seth'.

You'd think, with all that sort of touchy-feely post 'peace and love' mentality that I grew up with, the world would be a bit kinder now.

Yet we still have people saying things like 'I'm not racist. I have black friends'.

Sigh.

[identity profile] king-duncan.livejournal.com 2009-10-16 01:27 pm (UTC)(link)
My friend Ken still uses, "see, you are prejudiced" as a punchline, when people start talking about race.
Edited 2009-10-16 13:27 (UTC)

[identity profile] jeffxandra.livejournal.com 2009-10-16 01:39 pm (UTC)(link)
Actually, I would accuse the grandfather of being prejudiced.

He's the one who drew a negative conclusion about Seth based upon the adjective.

Maybe the boy has two friends named Seth who are physically very similar and this is how he differentiates them when they're not around. It's not like the boy is going to say "Proper Seth" and "Other Seth"