Ask HN: What moment in your life made you abandon a prejudice? - sasaf5
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ex-racist
Grew up in Saudi Arab. I had a lot of prejudices. It took a while but now I
feel I don't have any left.

1\. Blacks - Mostly due to American media, I had stereotyped all Blacks in my
head. My second roommate was a black kid and he was a nerd. He hated how
blacks were represented in media and especially hated how popular Black
artists acted gangster. Getting to know him and his friends really shook off
that negative stereotype I had.

2\. Jews - Growing up in Saudi, it was easy to assume every Jew is evil. First
semester in the US, my best friend was American Jew. Both of us had negative
stereotype of each others but somehow we became friends through mutual
friends. First, it was mostly political and philosophical debates but turned
out we had similar believes. We just called our books/prophets/god by
different names. Almost like we were fighting over variable names, not even
logic of code.

3\. Gays - Being Muslim, I thought being gay was a choice and even if it
wasn't a choice, people should not do it. We used to argue that people want to
have sex all the time but they got to have self-control. One of my friend in
college was in the closet. When he came out, I was really sad. But that led me
to discuss this more with friends and read more and realized that it is not a
choice.

4\. Women - I was hardcore believer in traditional roles. Not only that I
really thought logic was not something women are good at. And I thought that
women should not do anything too physical. A lot of female friends in college
showed me how wrong I was. I met amazing female programmers, I had female
friends who were stronger than me. I had female friends who were more well
read than many of my male friends and were more fun to discuss deep topics
with.

5\. My own people - I felt once I got "Americanized" and stopped being
racist/sexist, my own people felt very racist and I started to run away from
them. I felt alone among my people, my people simply labeled me as I have
forgotten my "roots" and my religion. It was very hard but slowly I learned
that there many people like me in the Muslim world. I found internet forums
for liberal and Athiest-leaning Muslims. And I learned a lot of Muslims act a
lot more conservative than they really are especially when meeting someone for
the first time.

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the_resistence
I was brought up to believe homosexuality was a mental disease. I lived in a
house (1970s) with a catholic father who was also a trained physician and
otherwise extremely dedicated to curing the ills of humanity (weird I know).
At university, a young lecturer came and talked openly and sincerely about his
struggles trying to deny his sexuality. I had a true epiphany that we are born
with a certain orientation which we may deny or be forced to deny but it will
always surface some day. I then realized so long as others didn't tell me how
to live and love in my hetero life, I shouldn't demand or expect different
from others.

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sethammons
I have two maybe odd examples where I had an opposite of normal
bias/prejudice.

I had a smart mom growing up and stories of an amazing grandma. I grew up
_knowing_ woman are smarter than men and men made up for it with physical
strength. This was largely reinforced in high school where many girls held top
academic positions and few boys matched them. Heck, I can recall the first
time I met a “dumb girl,” I was in my late teens or early twenties and she was
a stoner chick who dated a friend of a brother in law. It was mind warping as
I thought girls were incapable of being as dumb as guys.

Fast forward to getting my teaching credential, and I was exposed to the
concept that many held the bias that woman were worse at math. Queue studies
of poorer math performance for girls and some of the reasons behind it. I
talked to my neighbor, a former college math and physics professor, and he
agreed that woman couldn’t keep up with men, especially when 3d visualization
came in. This did not jive with my biases and required time to process.

Given data and studies, I can academically see the issues that could
negatively affect woman’s performance and presence in math and math-focused
fields. But emotionally, I have trouble accepting it due to how I was raised.

I did not fully abandon my bias on woman being smarter than men, but through
education and bias training, I’ve come to learn about issues that negatively
affect woman esp. around math education. Meeting people who don’t match a
prejudiced model and learning about the historical reasons why the bias exists
are important.

Related, I have a bias that older people should be wiser and more experienced.
As an interviewer, we took some bias training and I learned that many hold
that older candidates often fight agism. I learned I was unconsciously
expecting more from older candidates and that was unfair. I had to combat my
bias and temper my expectations and know it was ok if an older candidate only
did as well as a younger candidate.

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dyingkneepad
I grew up in a country with absolutely no foreigners. I think I saw people
speaking a different language like 3 times ever (I mean, outside the Internet
or TV). I had all these opinions and ideas about how people from other
countries were. Not big prejudices, but I started losing them when:

\- When I traveled outside my country for the first time and saw foreigners.

\- Then when I started working for an international company, full of
Americans, Chinese, Indians and Europeans. I met them in person, talked to
them and realized they are mostly people who want to have a honest job and
support their families, grow up in their careers, etc. Yes, there are
differences, but we're way more alike than different.

\- Then I moved to the USA and it killed a few more prejudices I had.

What I realized is that I hate a lot of governments, not the people those
governments govern.

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sasaf5
I thought VR was a quirky novelty that would never get significant adoption
(think 3D TVs).

Until one day I played an airplane simulator with VR. Looking up to the
horizon on a dive, looking at the runway when approaching at an angle,
gripping my seat when the airplane stalled. Bought a VR set on the same day.

~~~
runawaybottle
Flight sims and Space sims are unplayable to me now without VR. It’s a
completely different experience, you can’t go back once you try it.

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_wldu
A USENIX LISA conference a few years ago in Seattle. Before the conference, I
thought/assumed that Facebook was a joke. I thought that they lacked technical
talent and good design. I was wrong. They had the best presentations,
technology and ideas (by far) at the conference. They were much more
impressive than Google, Apple and Microsoft. My assumptions about Facebook
were wrong. Listening to their presentations and talking with their engineers
convinced me that I was wrong.

I do not use Facebook, own their stock or have any interest in the company at
all. The conference was a good while ago (six years maybe?) and I hope they
have the same technical culture and talent today as they did back then.

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mortivore
I've never been prejudiced, but I learned race existed in the 8th grade when a
black kid called me racist for having not seen the movie Barbershop.

