The Many Types of Apples

As an artist I often consider and reflect on my thoughts and feelings towards my environment. This includes everything from my ideas about my art and how I make it, the foods I choose to eat to the types of clothes I wear, my ideas of my neighbours and friends and my choices in plants in my garden.  Sometimes my ideas and opinions of these things come from a lived experience. Sometimes these opinions come from the ideas and opinions of others.  Children often absorb the ideas and opinions of others simply because their own lived experience is brief.

When our ideas are from lived experience, often prejudices can arise. Here is one example from my own experience.

When I was a grade schooler, I was bullied by a boy who had red hair. Later in my 20’s it happened again, a man with red hair caused problems for me. So, for a long long time my thinking and feelings towards males with red hair were prejudiced based on these two experiences. Not long ago I met and dated a man with red hair. Although we have since ended the romantic relationship, the experience taught me something valuable; that my prejudice towards this group of people was unfounded because not all men with red hair were bad.

It seems like a really strange thing when you consider prejudice in these terms. One or two bad experiences with a certain group or thing and now we decide to completely distrust and sometimes hate that group or thing.  However, its important to remember, there are always a few bad apples in every bunch. Which means; regardless of the demographic there are always a few members of that group that are less than desirable. This applies to everything from people to pets to clothes to food and beyond!!

Have I oversimplified the concept of prejudice?? Maybe. But sometimes we need to break things down into a simple form in order to really see what’s going on.

As I write this I am considering if I have a prejudice with acrylic paint. I primarily use oil paint because I love how it gives me the look and feel I want in my artwork. I’ve tried acrylic and it does not give me the same results. Maybe I’m doing it wrong??  Maybe. And while I choose not to use acrylic paint in my artwork I can still respect and admire the work of other artists who use acrylic paint in their work. Its nice to see artists can make beautiful work with something that confounds me.

The dictionary defines prejudice as:

Noun

preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience.

"English prejudice against foreigners"

verb

give rise to prejudice in (someone); make biased.

"the statement might prejudice the jury"

I agree with this dictionary definition, but I feel it needs to be expanded. As I demonstrated, I feel that prejudice can also develop from isolated events that have been personally experienced. This type of prejudice can sometimes take longer to overcome. Sometimes it is never overcome by someone who has that lived experience. In this case its important to understand that the prejudice is based on one person’s experience which cannot and should not apply to everyone else.

I feel what’s important is to become more aware of how we think about things and especially how we think about other people. If you consider each one of us experiences life differently, this in itself makes each one of us unique and different from each other. If we discover that we have a prejudice, examine the cause and understand that in every bunch there are a few bad apples. The rest of them are perfectly good, wonderful and worthy of our attention.