I am taken aback by some comments that my friends uttered. These are nice people, rational, smart, and experienced in working in diverse setting. And yet they made over-generalised statements about other people from opposing political party affiliation or religious beliefs, etc, etc.

Prejudice trumps intelligence.

The bigger problem, in my view, is that not only this affects them, but they talk about it openly. Spreading the prejudice to other people.

Instead of fact-based process to identify the root cause and then understanding the true circumstance, they assign attributes and sometimes blame.

I am guilty of this also in the past. But as I grow older, I realise that life is not so simple. If I do not walk in the other person's shoes nor live in his / her skin, I do not truly understand. I need to respect each person as an individual that God loves.

Prejudice is like the parable of the blind men and an elephant. And I need God to open my eyes and heart.

Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.

(1 Corinthians 13.12 NLT)