Prejudice
Couple of years ago, I attended a seminar on a technical topic. The seminar was being presented by a single speaker, and when he spoke the first couple of sentences, I found myself thinking "this is going to be a waste of time, I doubt if this guy knows much about this topic". What made me ashamed later was that I had jumped to that thought not because of what the speaker had said but rather because of his accent. As I sat through the seminar, I found that this person not only had good knowledge and command over the topic but was a good presenter as well!
A similar moment of weakness occurred when my child had high fever. We had already been to the emergency room at night when the fever crossed 104 and did not feel comfortable that the emergency care physician had figured out what was going on. We wanted to see a pediatrician. The next morning as we were waiting in the pediatrician's office an asian doctor walked in to attend to our child. My first reaction was a slight disappointment because I doubted the competance of this doctor and his ability to communicate clearly. Again, this reaction was based on the persons race rather than any fact or analysis. The doctor began by asking what our concerns were. He sat patiently listening to two young parents go on about how their child was sick, had high fever and how the antibiotics had not helped. This itself was unusual. Seldom do doctors take the time to really listen to what the patient has to say or to understand what they must be going thorugh emotionally. And so, just in that regard itself, this asian doctor was better that most other doctors. However, that was not all. He correctly diagnosed that our child may have contracted the rosiola virus which is characterised by high fever. He told us that most likely we will see a rash within 48 hours and the fever will subside immediately following that. If not, he said he needs to see us again. Just as he predicted the rash appeared the next day and the fever was gone.
When we think of racism, we usually think of blatant discrimination or attrocities based on race. If asked whether we are racist, we will seldom answer in the affirmative. However, there are many subtle forms of racism which may be aptly referred to as prejudice that we all need to watch out for. While there's lot of debate and discussion on racism, seldom does one hear about prejudice. I am glad I realized how unjust and narrow I was and this is probably going to be the case with most people who have prejudices based on race.
A similar moment of weakness occurred when my child had high fever. We had already been to the emergency room at night when the fever crossed 104 and did not feel comfortable that the emergency care physician had figured out what was going on. We wanted to see a pediatrician. The next morning as we were waiting in the pediatrician's office an asian doctor walked in to attend to our child. My first reaction was a slight disappointment because I doubted the competance of this doctor and his ability to communicate clearly. Again, this reaction was based on the persons race rather than any fact or analysis. The doctor began by asking what our concerns were. He sat patiently listening to two young parents go on about how their child was sick, had high fever and how the antibiotics had not helped. This itself was unusual. Seldom do doctors take the time to really listen to what the patient has to say or to understand what they must be going thorugh emotionally. And so, just in that regard itself, this asian doctor was better that most other doctors. However, that was not all. He correctly diagnosed that our child may have contracted the rosiola virus which is characterised by high fever. He told us that most likely we will see a rash within 48 hours and the fever will subside immediately following that. If not, he said he needs to see us again. Just as he predicted the rash appeared the next day and the fever was gone.
When we think of racism, we usually think of blatant discrimination or attrocities based on race. If asked whether we are racist, we will seldom answer in the affirmative. However, there are many subtle forms of racism which may be aptly referred to as prejudice that we all need to watch out for. While there's lot of debate and discussion on racism, seldom does one hear about prejudice. I am glad I realized how unjust and narrow I was and this is probably going to be the case with most people who have prejudices based on race.
posted by Anil | 11:02 AM
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