Prejudice

          America is, in some cases, not living up to its reputation as a composite culture where everyone works as one. Prejudice, the unjustified assumptions we naturally make about people different from us, is still corroding away at the American dream. Historically, it has been blacks and Japanese, traces of which linger today. Once, prejudice was against the French nationality, resulting in French fries being renamed "Freedom Fries", although ironically the food actually came from Belgium. Now, with conflicts in the Middle East, the Muslim religion and people is the main target of primitive hostility.

         An experiment was conducted in which two actors were to appear inside a bakery in Texas. One of the actors was to stand behind a counter and serve goods to people. The other was a woman wearing a burqa, who was to walk into the restaurant and attempt to order something, at which point the first actor would put her down and say "We don't serve your kind here" as well as an assortment of racist epithets. The whole thing would be filmed, and the camera would catch bystanders' reactions to the situation. There were a decent number of cases where bystanders, Muslim or not, would retaliate emotionally and inspiringly. There were a few sad cases where the bystander would agree with the first actor, giving him a thumb's up for patriotism. However, the vast majority of bystanders did nothing at all, which is perhaps more disturbing than the prejudice itself. Tolerance of intolerance is indirectly intolerance itself. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.