The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

         I remember several incidents that I saw in a movie where the setting was the south around the late 1950s.  The black characters in the movie were discriminated against in numerous ways.  The main characters worked as maids.  They worked in homes where they were not allowed to enter the front door, use the same dishes as their employers and they were forced to use separate bathrooms.  They were constantly, systematically, blatantly told they were less than the white people with which they interacted.  They were treated as second class citizens.     

         The racist attitudes of the white characters resulted in the constant devaluing of the black characters as well as creating an oppressive environment that restricted opportunities and denied equality in every arena in society.  The prejudice was institutionalized, legal and ingrained in the thinking of the majority of white people in the movie.

         As I watched, I felt sadness, anger and wonder that anyone, let alone the majority of a culture, could believe such things and act on those beliefs in such intense and violent ways - particularly when those beliefs are challenged.  While I realize that prejudice began long before this time -- and persists even today – and was born out of economic needs and/or fear of what is different, it amazes me that anyone could continue in that belief system when there is so much proof to the contrary.

         The sadness came from the knowledge, too, that so many black people had come to accept their circumstances and felt so helpless to change.  I understand that those attitudes were the by-product of years of being told that they were second class citizens as well as being told there was nothing they could do to change the situation.  When black people took steps to change they were stopped -- sometimes violently.

         Initially, members of the dominant culture would have to change their attitudes and beliefs to create greater equity.  Those changes would need to manifest in the removal of the systemic barriers that were preventing equal opportunity for black people.