In Theory: Is a person with a prejudiced view necessarily a bad person?

Is a person who holds a prejudiced view necessarily a bad person?

Not according to a recent poll conducted by the Huffington Post and YouGov.

The poll asked people how they would describe others who have negative views of Muslims, black people, women, gay people and immigrants. They were given three options:

Did that make them bad people, prejudiced but not necessarily bad or neither?

“Most of those polled fell into the middle category, saying that disliking an entire race, religion, gender or other class of people was prejudiced, but didn’t necessarily make someone a bad person,” writes the Huffington Post’s Ariel Edwards-Levy.

Q. What do you think? Is a person who holds a prejudiced view necessarily a bad person?

There’s certainly much to consider in this seemingly simple question. Prejudice based on exterior traits such as skin color, gender and country of origin are unloving, unfair and errant. God corrected the prophet Samuel, who made a snap judgment based the good appearance of David’s older brother, “God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). It’s the heart of the person that really matters.

While it may be “bad” to have prejudices, can we completely characterize a person who has prejudiced views a “bad” person? Who isn’t prejudiced, at least in minor ways? Am I a “good” person if I have less prejudice than someone else? Jesus said, at least in the absolute sense, “No one is good except God alone” (Mark 10:18). Considering the fact that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), I hesitate to make any absolute character judgments of people being either “good” or “bad.”

I guess I’d start answering this question with the apostle Paul’s words recorded in 1 Timothy 1:15: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all.” Christ died to redeem us from our sins. All of us, that is, regardless of our external differences. In the light of the cross there is no room for prejudice.

Pastor Jon Barta
Burbank

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People are not bad — some actions and ideas, yes — but, as a humanist, I believe people themselves are not. If someone does something considered bad or evil, it is because they are either sick, delusional, misguided or under the influence of mind-altering substances. We need to have compassion and understanding for the missteps of human beings in order to avoid them in the future. This does not preclude punishment for people who have committed truly bad deeds or locking up people who are harmful to society. But, this punishment must come with compassion, as well as honest efforts at rehabilitation.

As far as prejudice, we are all prejudiced to some extent. It is human nature to prejudge and to favor one thing over another. So, if prejudice makes someone bad, we are all bad. I don’t think that is the case.

What is bad is acting on hurtful and prejudicial thoughts in a way that harms oneself or others. We have to be self-reflective, understand our prejudices, admit we have them, and realize they are usually personal bias, intentional or not, conscious or not, and should not be a condemnation of any individual person. In this way, we can avoid expressing them in a hurtful way but rather in a productive manner, as respectful open-minded exchanges.

The recent trend toward disparaging political correctness is just a ploy to allow people freedom to hate more. This too does not make them bad, just misguided. It is the hate itself that is bad, the prejudicial act that is condemnable, not the person committing it. But, can we separate the two? It’s a struggle but, by promoting the humanist values of compassion and forgiveness, by putting ourselves in other’s shoes — by seeing ourselves in others — hopefully we can. And when we separate the prejudice from the person, I know we will move toward also disconnecting the stereotype from the individual and, ultimately treating everyone with respect as a fellow human. Period.

Joshua Lewis Berg
Humanist Celebrant
Glendale

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If everyone who holds a prejudiced view is a bad person we are in even more trouble than having a lying unpresidential racist sexist bully striving to control the U.S. nuclear codes, armed forces and Supreme Court.

While our population has become more and more diverse our housing patterns to a large extent remain segregated along color and class lines. I think this explains much prejudice, the implicit bias that we now recognize intrudes all too often in decision-making.

I think it is regrettable how much animosity so many feel for those different from themselves, but what is bad is prejudiced judgment put into action, say for instance you are a developer refusing to rent to black applicants.

I was going to recommend applying the rule to “hate the sin, love the sinner” but apparently that aphorism has fallen out of favor for lots of reasons across a broad religious spectrum. So let’s try to love (but not uncritically) the sinners among and within us and banish prejudice from our hearts and minds through wider interactions, while countering discriminatory actions with the full force of our policies, laws, policing and courts.

Roberta Medford
Atheist
Montrose

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The implicit assumption in the question is that we actually have the capacity to judge whether another person is “bad.” Not merely flawed, or in error, or uninformed, but bad as a whole, in toto.

The New Testament provides insight into our very limited ability to see into the souls of others. In the 19th chapter of Matthew, a man addressed Christ as “good master.” Jesus replied, “Why callest thou me good? None is good, save one, that is, God.”

Christ’s point, I believe, is that we all are flawed in some way. This is one of the conditions of mortality. Sadly, some degree of prejudice is a fault that many of us share, including many of those who accuse others of it. So do we really want to make it a defining characteristic? If we do, it will be much harder to help prejudiced people to change, because we will see them only as evil.

Prejudice, like other failings, can be overcome. I saw this as a boy growing up in a southern town as it progressed, in the 1960s, from legal segregation — separate schools, water fountains, public restrooms and theater entrances — to integration. Certainly, not all prejudice was erased, but it diminished. Those who made the effort found that they could get along. Some even became friends.

We live in a particularly difficult time now, when headlines seem to urge us toward anger and bias based on race, religion or ethnicity. They tempt us to write off entire segments of the population as being bad or otherwise unworthy of our trust and respect. I find that it helps to remind myself that the great majority my own actual experiences with people of other races and faiths have been positive.

We must make certain judgments. For example, we may wisely avoid people who clearly have committed themselves to paths of violence, hate or dishonesty. But we need to remember that even these people may someday change. The hope of change is the essence of Christ’s message. He promises that we not only can be redeemed from the eternal consequences of our mistakes but that we can be made spiritually whole in mortal life.

Michael White
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
La Crescenta