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I rarely post on the forum, but found this topic and felt like contributing.
I recently took a Social Psychology course and learned that basically everyone has prejudices against people that are different from them and have unconscious biases. Implicit Association Tests (IATs) have demonstrated that we form biases based on race, gender, weight, socioeconomic status, age, etc. In this class, we got to create our own IATs and found that the average person, no matter how much they swear up and down that they aren't racist/discriminatory/biased, usually demonstrates a preference to their own race, gender, SES, etc. There are very few instances of people having an "opposite preference." I think that as hard as we try to deny our biases, we still have them. There are some arguments that our biases were formed as a way to "protect ourselves" from those who were different and potential threats when we were still a brand new species, and unfortunately those evolutionary biases grew and developed into prejudices and discriminatory behavior as we evolved. I think a possible reason for the many divisions in our country and other countries around the world is partially because it's been hardwired into our brains since the beginning of mankind that we need to protect ourselves from those who are different.
Sorry if this post is redundant because it's such obvious information... Also I know my response is kinda off topic, but I wanted to say my piece...
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