Is Prejudice Affecting Society's Identity?

Prejudice is often known as this terrible pre-determined thought that people have of another person, or groups of people. But is prejudice really as bad as one thinks it is, or is it actually helping one benefit the formation our societal identity? Society is very hard to fit in with in America, but with these prejudices, it can help one find their identity in society. Prejudices might make one seem completely opposite of what they really are, but with those kinds of prejudices, one can use them to build themselves up and make others think differently of us. Just because society places all of these stigmas on humans, doesn’t mean that one has to live in the norms and be alike in every way, shape, and form, when we should be who we really want to be. One does not have to

In Vincent N. Parrillo’s essay, Causes of Prejudice, he talks about why individuals have prejudices, the level of prejudices, and how prejudices affect people. Prejudices affect one’s ability to form a stable self identity because society is constantly judging individuals based on what they wear, how they speak, how much money they have, etcetera. An example of an act of prejudice would be in Jean Kilbourne’s essay, Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt: Advertising and Violence, where she speaks out how women are displayed as something that is to be sold, instead of someone that has real emotions, feelings, and thoughts, and how it mostly ends up in violence towards women. With these types of prejudices, one can use them to make themselves stronger and build an identity frame based on somebody we want to be, rather than somebody society wants individuals to be. Prejudices can affect one’s identity because one is constantly hearing about these prejudices, as well as forming their own types of prejudices. If one wants to form an identity, society will form a prejudiced based on what they have