Prejudices & Preconceptions Revisited

Several days ago we discussed the issues around bloggers' nationalities. This time we're going to go a little deeper.

 

Today we are going to talk about the less obvious prejudices and preconceptions. The ones we keep hidden and rarely admit to, even to ourselves.

 

I had originally planned to break this down into several posts about nationality, gender, sexual orientation and race. As I'm writing this it occurs to me we could expand it to include religious and or political affiliation.

 

I started with nationality because, in the blogosphere, it is the most difficult to disguise. All of the others could easily go unnoticed with only a cursory examination of a blog.

 

I determined that to cover all of the topics I would have to write the same post over and over with the same content, only substituting terms and since everyone has their own buttons, here's what we're going to do. You know what is in your heart. You choose the appropriate terms from the following list (or use your own) and fill the blanks as necessary.

 

               Male                  Straight                  White

             Female                Lesbian                   Asian

               Gay                    Black                      Arab

             Liberal             Conservative            Christian

              Jew                    Muslim                   Atheist              

 

 I came across this great blog a few weeks ago. I really enjoyed the writing style. I just assumed the author was a __________  _________.

I visited the blog several times and left a few comments. I even went so far as to exchange emails with the author a couple of times. I thought some of their articles were a little weird but, for the most part, I really liked their sense of humor and take on topics. A couple of days ago something I read in a post hit me a little funny so I checked deeper and found out they were actually a _________  _________.

Now I don't know what to do because I am a ________  ________ and I feel very strongly about __________. I have never been comfortable around _________. I'm confused because I was really getting into their stuff but now, whenever  read it, I can't help thinking about _________.

 

Now what do you do?

 

Seriously.

 

You can lie to me but don't lie to yourself.

 

This happened to me. I wandered into a blog a couple of weeks ago and really liked the content. For some reason I don't know, I thought the author was a female of a certain political persuasion. After reading several posts and commenting on a few, I realized the author was, in fact, not only a male but also the polar opposite politically than I thought.

 

My feel-good, P.C. conscience said the content was all that mattered, who wrote it didn't change anything. In reality, my reaction disturbed me enough to inspire these posts. 

 

The truth is, it just feels different now. It shouldn't but it does. I still read the blog, I just don't know if it moves me as strongly as before.

 

How much does the image you have in your mind effect how you relate to and accept an author?

 

 

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