Prejudge, prejudgment, and prejudice, why do these words have such a bad reputation? Like most problems, the society responds to one extreme with the opposite end of the spectrum. Example is the solution to discrimination, affirmative action, was in place for close to 40 years until California finally banned it in 1997. The politicians meant well, they wanted to eliminate discrimination against minority races, women, and the disabled. However, similar to most reactionary regulations, the answer to the problem created reverse racism and resentment towards the minorities that were less qualified.
The truth is, EVERYONE prejudges. You would be lying to yourself to say you do not prejudge people when you meet them or to say you are not aware of prejudgment in everyday life. Yes, it is in every part of our lives and for the right reasons too. It is all about using your perception and figuring out the probabilities in each situation, basically how LIKELY something will happen.
Okay, we have to set some ground rules before we get any further into this discussion. In order for you to comprehend any of this, you have to be a person who can rationalize and understand the logic behind calculating probability. It may be common sense to a lot of you, but I have been surprised time and time again at how stupid people are. Here is the test, which bet would you take? A $1 bet where you have a 20% chance of winning $1 or a $1 bet where you have a 60% of winning $1? When the return is the same, a normal logical person will take the higher percentage bet, 60%, EVERYTIME. Obviously you are not guaranteed to win in the 60% bet, but just that you are more LIKELY to win than in the 20% bet. It’s that simple, sane people make choices based on probability. If you are a person who is retarded enough to still pick the 20% when we already established that the return is equal, then you are helpless and this post is obviously not within your realm of comprehension.
Let’s start with a couple of everyday life examples where people are perfectly fine with prejudgment:
Car Insurance – factors that “prejudge” how safe you are as a driver include age, gender, marital status, education, and type of vehicle. Car Insurance companies prejudge drivers all the time based on statistics of what is more LIKELY to happen. You are more LIKELY to have an accident if you are young and you are less LIKELY to have an accident if you are female.
Jobs – factors that “prejudge” an applicant, whether it is a new employee or an internal promotion, include age, gender, ethnicity, education, experience, and appearance (no company will admit it because that would be illegal). It is more LIKELY that you are a smarter person and can learn faster if you went to a good school. It is less LIKELY that you are someone who is serious about work if you have tattoos showing or if you have long messy hair on the day of the interview. This can be a whole topic on its own so I will have to elaborate on that another time.
Now here are a couple of examples where people get all riled up about prejudging people. The result is inefficiency and ineffectiveness, but at least the stupid people are happy.
Airport security – randomly searching passengers at the airport is retarded. Why can’t we have racial profiling if it can more LIKELY create a safer commute? How is searching a 60-year old Japanese lady’s luggage a good use of our tax dollars? Unless you can show me a report that elderly Asian women have been bombing airports, stop this madness and concentrate on people who are more LIKELY to bomb airplanes. Seriously, what is the deal with this whole equality crap? Why can’t we concentrate on the group of people who are more LIKELY to bomb the airplane instead of randomly search everyone when it is obviously a waste of time.
Small Stores – owners tend to tense up or be extra cautious when certain ethnicities show up in the stores. People say that’s being a racist, but I call that self preservation 101. Is it racist to acknowledge that one out of every twelve people of a specific race in California between the age of 25 and 29 is in state prison according to a 2006 report? How is it racist to think that it is more LIKELY to have a 27 year old man of a certain ethnicity rob your store or steal your merchandise when the collected data already speaks for itself? Here’s a simple question for all you supposed non-racists out there – Would you open a store in Compton or in Upland if both sites will bring you the exact same amount of profit? I guess you would be a racist if you didn’t choose Compton, but you would also be a retard if you chose Compton.
Conclusion? Prejudgment is absolutely necessary! Why shouldn’t we judge first? Since when is it wrong to judge a situation based on what you have experienced or learned in life? Are we to pretend we have a clean slate in every encounter? That would be ridiculous, but apparently we are suppose to do that when it involves one of the protected characteristics. Screw the stupid equality nonsense and just admit that people aren’t created equal, move on with our lives, and judge to your heart’s content.