Avoiding Prejudice that Leads to Discrimination or Ignorance
Eden Steven

As pointed out in the article, “Living Together,” published in Cross Point edition July 2007, Indonesia as a nation have been living together for more than five decades however harmony and peace within the nation has yet to come (Tanuwidjaja, Crosspoint edition July 2007). Issues that arise from differences in race, religion, ethnicity, social class persist over time. But why do these differences matter?

Perhaps there are many answers to this question but one possibility is because of the way people view each other in the society. And often the view comes before they even have the chance to actually check the validity of their view. This is called prejudice. In our society, prejudice 1) is commonly accepted as a negative term. It is sometimes seen as one of the cause of discrimination or ignorance. But on the other hand, as a given fact, prejudice is unavoidable. If prejudice is unavoidable, and if prejudice is always negative, then everyone will treat each other in a negative way. But we know that this is not true. We see many good people in the society.

One aspect of the parable of the sheep and goats in Matthew 25:31-45 gives us a striking picture of discrimination or ignorance. This is not very different from our current situation. The parable starts with an introduction of the two groups, the sheep and the goats.

31”When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. 32All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

It then continued with explanation about the sheep and an interesting thing happened.

34”Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.' 37”Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

The sheep were blessed by the King because they gave him food when he is hungry, clothed him when he was naked, and taking care of him when he was a stranger. But, the sheep does not know when they did that. It is not because they have forgotten, but simply because they do not know that the King’s heart is with the people as evident in the next verse.

40”The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

While the sheep were still confused, the King tells the truth (implying that the sheep did not know of the truth yet). This is very interesting, because, even though the people did not know the King’s heart is with the people, they helped them anyway; even toward a stranger. The parable then continued with describing the goats.

41”Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.' 44”They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?'

Here we see that the goats, on the other hand, were condemned by the King because they did not give him food when he is hungry, did not cloth him when he was naked, and did not take care of him when he was a stranger. But, the goats, just like the sheep, were confused by the King’s saying. In the next verse, it is evident that the goats, just like the sheep, did not know the truth yet. They did not know yet that the King’s heart is with the people.

45”He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'

In this verse, we can see that the goats actually knew about the situation in the society (refer to the word “the least of these”, means that the goats were in the middle of the people when the King spoke) but decided to ignore them. Although the goats and the sheep were similar in their knowledge of the truth, they acted differently. Why is this so?

The sheep helped the people even though they do not know yet that the King’s heart is with the people. Thus it is clear that, the sheep’s action is not due to reward or the King’s instruction. We should also note that the sheep even help the stranger. This means that the sheep also did not help because the people were their immediate friend or family either. So perhaps, it is simply due to the way the sheep perceive others. The sheep perhaps emphasized the similarities between the stranger and themselves more than emphasizing the differences. On the other hand, perhaps the goats emphasized the differences between the stranger and themselves more.

Researchers from the Social Psychology Networks (Plous, 2003) referred to the research of Gordon Allport in his book, “The Nature of Prejudice,” to show evidence that human’s brain works in a categorical way. This categorical thinking can be easily realized by reflecting on figure 1. The most-left image would naturally fall into the category of rectangle and the most-right image would naturally fall into the category of diamond. When looking at the middle images, it is apparent that there is no clear category for such images. Thus naturally, the human brain would use the pre-existing category to adopt the images; that is to put the middle images into the category of either a rotated square or an off-centered diamond.

Figure 1. Showing different orientation of boxes. (www.understandingprejudice.org, 2006)

Allport (1954) argues that categorical thinking is natural in human’s brain because it is a necessary skill for perception. Furthermore, categorical thinking is closely related to prejudice as evident when reflecting on figure one; the middle images are prejudged to be either rotated square or an off-centered diamond. Although categorical thinking is necessary skill for perception, it can also distort perception as observed by Joachim Krueger and Russell Clement in 1994 (www.understandingprejudice.org, 2006) and by Robert Goldstone in 1995.

The distortion of perception can be done via assimilation or contrasting; having a categorical thinking can leads to the tendency to assimilate two different events or contrasting two similar events. The distortion of perception via assimilation was reported by Goldstone (1995) when observing the assimilation effect in color perception. This effect can be seen by reflecting upon figure 2. His finding was that people tend to assimilate the color of letter “L” to be more similar to letter “T” and to assimilate the color of number “8” to be more similar to number “6” while letter “L” and number “8” are both having exactly the same color. The other kind of distortion of perception can be done via contrasting.

Figure 2. Goldstone (1995) found that most people rate the color of the letter “L” as more red than the number “8”

The distortion of perception via contrasting was observed by Krueger and Clement (1994) when they conduct a survey asking people to estimate the average temperature of two different 8-days period (Nov 15 to Nov 23 and Nov 30 to Dec 8). The results they obtained were as follow. People estimated that the average temperatures are different between the two periods although the average temperature really is the same. Thus, people in general tend to contrast similar events.

The same process of assimilation and contrasting also happens in racial, social class, religion, cultural based prejudice. Linville’s (1998) research shows that people tend to distort their view about other groups as a homogenous group while each member of the group is different from each other in reality (assimilate). Also, people tend to distort their view between their own groups with other groups as two completely different groups while there may be much resemblance between the groups. For example, a group of Chinese Indonesian may have tendencies to emphasize that the Javanese are different from them (contrasting) while at the same time assumes that all Javanese have similar behavior (assimilation) and vice versa.

When assimilation and constrasting are done in the context of human sinful pride, people will tend to judge others as lower than themselves. And worse, in context of racial or religion based discrimination, one bad experience with a member of other race or religion, can lead people to discriminate the whole race or religion.

Thus, we need to fight against our own tendency to overlook similarities between us and others. The fact that every human being has the right to live and enjoy God’s love is often being overlooked; judging ourselves as the deserving of God’s love while others are not as deserving. Perhaps this is the perspectives that the sheep had in the parable. Perhaps the sheep perceive the stranger just as him/herself, simply as a fellow citizen of the kingdom thus realizing everybody’s right to live and enjoy the kingdom. On the other hand, the goats, perhaps focused only on the differences thus perceiving that only those who have direct relationship with the King deserves to live and enjoy the kingdom while overlooking the basic similarities between them that they are all the citizen of the kingdom.

Christians in Indonesia or likewise in any part of the world thus should work their best to help those in need despite their religion, race or any other difference. And this should be done out of compassion toward the least fortunate of the society just like the sheep even when they do not know yet that the King’s heart is with the people. And compassion may emerge when people focus on the similarities that people are all in need and have the same basic right to live.

Learning from current research on how our brain functions, thus, we should realize that the distortion of perception that leads to discrimination or ignorance (in context of human sinful pride) is at best a tendency, thus it is always possible to refine our perception toward others in a way that it may lead to compassion toward others. When Christians with resources are planning to distribute their resources to help others, they should do so without making racial or religious barriers. Very often, when planning to help those in need, people think about whether they really deserve help or not. For example, when Christians who have been discriminated before, thinks about helping poor people of other race or religion that may history in discriminating them, they may recall every sorrow or the sad incidents on the past that causes them to think that the needy people from these groups do not deserve help. This is the kind of contrasting tendency that Christians must avoid. In reality, there are different kinds of people in every race and in every religion. And there is a basic similarity between these needy people and themselves that is, people are all in need and have the same basic right to live.

Eden Steven is currently pursuing Ph.D. in Physics at Florida State University

Reference

Allport, G. W. (1954). The nature of prejudice. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Goldstone, R. L. (1995). Effects of categorization on color perception. Psychological Science, 6, 298-304.

Krueger, J., & Clement, R. W. (1994). Memory-based judgments about multiple categories: A revision and extension of Tajfel's accentuation theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 35-47.

Plous, S. (2003). “The psychology of prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination: An overview” In S. Plous (Ed.), Understanding Prejudice and Discrimination (pp. 3-48). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Linville, P. W. (1998). The heterogeneity of homogeneity. In J. M. Darley & J. Cooper (Eds), Attribution and social interaction: The legacy of Edward E. Jones (pp. 423-462). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.