The human has not one but two births — first, when a person is born from the mother’s womb, and second, when that person rises from the socio-culturally imposed cocoon of prejudices and ignorance.

Abhijit Naskar
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The human has not one but two births – first, when a person is born from the mother’s womb, and second, when that person rises from the socio-culturally imposed cocoon of prejudices and ignorance. We are born our first time as a baby in the womb. We are also born our second time as people who live in society with preconceived notions of who we are, what we can do, how we should act or think. The first time we are born into our mother’s womb, there is no discrimination by society.

As children, we don’t have any prejudices about women, or people of certain races or religions. We are just being born into the world with pure innocent hearts. We are just being humans then. The second time we are born into society is when we start to grow up and learn what is right and wrong.

The more pressure society puts on us to conform to their notion of right and wrong, the more closed-minded we become. The moment someone thinks they have the right to tell you what to do or say, you have already started down the path of becoming prejudiced against them. When someone tells you that black people can’t ride horses, that’s prejudice (prejudice is “a form of discrimination that is established on the basis of race, religion, social origin or some other personal characteristic which distinguishes individuals”). When someone tells you that women cannot be firefighters because it is physically impossible for them to carry heavy equipment on their bodies (this is gender bias), they are prejudice against women (gender bias).

When someone tells you that gay people can’t be priests because it goes against their religious beliefs (this is religious bias), they are prejudice against gay people (religious bias).

Source: Principia Humanitas

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