"Everyone's a Little Bit Prejudice"

So I will go ahead and admit a pop culture obsession of mine: musicals. In class, when talking about how many people will say, “I don’t like gay people, except for this one person,” it reminded me of a song from a musical called Avenue Q. Basically, the musical is the raunchy, grown-up version of Sesame Street. The musical originally sparked a lot of controversy with songs like “The Internet is for Porn,” and the song I will refer to, “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist.”

Whether we are willing to admit it or not, I believe this song is more relevant to our current society than people realize. I do not think everyone is racist, however, I do believe most people have at some point in their life had prejudice against a type of person based solely on appearance. It is a natural trait of human beings to group themselves into categories because of the innate desire to belong and fit in. Because of this desire, humans have developed the idea of race and somehow decided race is an acceptable means of classification. In my Sociology class, I recently learned that there are often more differences biologically between two people of the same race, than two people of different races; yet, we insist on highlighting the differences between races, mostly because of skin color.

I am Indiana born and grown; however, I spent two years of high school in Alabama. Talk about culture shock. I went from a school that was full of different races to a school where I could count the number of students in my class that were a minority on one hand. Not to mention, many of the students were openly racist. Although I was constantly offended by racist comments, I learned a lot about prejudices and the ways they are developed and shown. Furthermore, I was able to share a more tolerant and loving view many had not experienced. I think I am still trying to figure out the balance between being too sensitive and not sensitive enough to race, but I challenge you to be aware of the prejudices you have that you are unaware of, whether it be towards another race, gender, or sexual orientation.