A Child's Exposure To Cultural Differences

1. When I was four I had a friend that I went to pre-school and kindergarten with. His name was Sudeep and we stayed over at each others homes all the time. His father worked with mine, so our families’ knew each other quite well. They were from Pakistan, the only family from the Middle East in the little town of Okeechobee. At the time I really didn’t know what that meant, neither did Sudeep, and we didn’t particularly care. The one time I asked what that meant; my father said that meant they were Hindu. I asked Sudeep what being Hindu was and he said he didn’t know. When he asked me what that was, I told him that he was Hindu. He denied this, saying he was Muslim. I thought about that and asked him what it meant. He said he didn’t know either. With that over with we went back to playing without really thinking about it.

When the time came to go to elementary school, I lost touch with Sudeep. He lived in a different district, so we were split up. I later learned that my father had a disagreement with his, so we were not encouraged to see each other. It wasn’t until middle school that I saw him again, being in the same class. We got to know each other again, but mainly in a school setting. Again he was the only child from the Middle East in the class. Though I didn’t care much, having known him for so long, he was constantly being asked where he was from and what religion he was. When another friend asked me these questions I answered on his behalf. “He’s from Pakistan, He’s Hindu”.

Sudeep’s response was shocking. He Vehemenently denied being Hindu, he said “Hell no! I’m Muslim!”

By this time I understood the religious differences between someone who is Hindu and who is Muslim. I had simply remembered what my father told me and parroted it without thinking. Sudeep acted extremely insulted and it took most of the day for him to calm down. I apologized later and tentatively asked him what the matter was.

I’ll never forget, he told me, “My father said the Hindu’s are bad people, and that we should be glad we’re not Hindu. We’re Muslim, our religion is right. They’re dirty, they’re poor, they lie, cheat, and steal”.

After that I was always careful to make the distinction, figuring a similar slip of the tongue was probably what caused the disagreement between my father and Sudeep’s. We remained good friends until my family moved away from Okeechobee, but I’ll always remember the sheer anger he expressed when I had mistakenly called him Hindu. The fact that Sudeep had probably never met a person who was Hindu, and that all his anger and hatred was based upon a few prejudiced statements his father said, was not lost on me. But I didn’t really see that it was my place to try to teach him differently, besides I had never a Hindu person either. To my mind, for all that I knew, Sudeep’s father could’ve been right.

I know now that Sudeep’s beliefs were unfounded. But it is so amazing to me how over the course of a few years a person can change. When we were little we simply didn’t care, the labels Muslim and Hindu were just words without meaning. Though we theoretically knew them, they had no affect on what we thought and how we behaved. Then over the course of a few years we begin to mature. With that comes a new form of categorization. Though Sudeep may think very differently about people who are Hindu now, then, he categorized an entire race of people based upon what his parents and his religion had to say.

Since then I have been exposed to people from all around the world, with different beliefs, cultures, and religions. Sadly, the majority of them suffer from some form of prejudice as well. Most of it was just as baseless as Sudeep’s. I’m sad to say that I’m probably prejudiced and just don’t know it. Given the way the human mind seems to need to categorize and stereotype, it’s almost inevitable.

2. In a perfect world we would all see the world through the eyes of children. The prejudice, hatred, and bigotry would have no place here. Just like a young child, we would perceive the world for what it is, rather than what we think it is, or what it ought to be. In doing so, our judgments will be based upon personal experience and truth. But we would not generalize these beliefs. For example, just because an African-American tried to rob me, doesn’t mean that all African-Americans will try to rob me. It is the process by which we generalize these experiences that creates a lot of the prejudice and discrimination in the world. So in a perfect world this process of generalization would not occur.

3. From this experience I learned to give people the benefit of the doubt. That just because of who they are or what they believe I should not think of all such persons in the same way. This is the first step to prejudice. I hope Sudeep has learned the error of his beliefs. From him I learned that he was exactly who I don’t want to be.