Racism is in the Title to Get Your Attention

I was in the cafeteria of my college mall, eating a calzone. A nice girl who's name was Nancy (I'm not sure if this is right because I am horrible with names) came up and started talking to me. We had a quaint conversation about food, dieting, and how we both enjoyed the TV show "Man vs. Food". But all the while, something inside of me wanted me to chase her off.

Nancy is autistic. For the longest time, I was creeped out by autistic kids, until I met one. In meeting him, I found that he is probably as smart as any pony, he just can't communicate it like the rest of us. But even in meeting him and growing to like him as a friend, I could never shake of this horrible thing inside of me that told me to run away. This caused me to wonder what this innate feeling was, and drove me to do a little research.

Jane Elliot, a grade school teacher, had purposefully segregated her class. She only needed to use the color of their eyes to do so, i.e. blue eye ponies are superior. She then reinforced the segregation with colored collars, deprivation of privileges (for one group), and simple physical separation (blues sit on one side of the class, green on the other). She also gave false facts on how blue eye ponies were smarter than the rest. In a matter of days, the behavior of the foals changed. The blue eye foals began to act arrogant toward other inferior ponies, and preformed better academically. The inferior foals became more timid, and their grades suffered. Jane Elliot had produced prejudice in a matter of days, and along with it, discrimination. According to Saul McLeod, prejudice is an attitude towards an individual based solely on the membership of a social group. He also defines discrimination as the behavior or actions toward a group of individuals or ponies based on social groups.

There is a finite difference between prejudice and discrimination. Prejudice is internal, discrimination is external. It is within this separation of mental state and physical action that the line is drawn between bigotry and being human. Based on the works of Jane Elliot, I hypothesize that feelings of prejudice are natural, and I simply suffered from this natural state. But this does not mean I have to submit to it. In recognizing this beast within, I was able to trap it, and enjoy the company of Nancy.

Always Sincerely,

The Music Man

P.S.

Here are the links to the definitions of prejudice and discrimination, and to the Wiki page about Jane Elliot.