Prejudice

I’m not gonna lie, I hated school. 

Here I was, a six year old boy, at Rozelle Primary School. I was at school to learn, to enjoy others’ company and to give my parents some much deserved relief from my mischief. I was like any other kid; young, innocent and unassuming. Yet somehow, even at the tender age of six, I knew something was wrong. 

I mean for one thing, the kids would label me fat. Sure, I was a bit chubby…mostly thanks to my parents’ fish and chips shop just down the road, but did I really deserve to be frowned upon just because of my outer self? Come on… it was kindergarten. And secondly, the other kids would call me Asian, exacerbated by the fact that I was the only ethnic kid in the class. Once again, is it justified to distinguish me as an alienated culture?

Herein lies the problem. 

From the very outset, society seems to warrant distinguishing the minority. Yes, we were six and immature, but those labels that were placed upon me stuck with me for the longest of periods. It was not until senior high school that I could shake off the constant staring into the mirror… tipping the scales…all those different diets I tried. In the end, I worked myself to my physical limits, just to lose weight and gain acknowledgement instead of alienation. Yet, should it even matter what those others think? I was forced to hate myself…my body…my look, all because others could not look indifferently towards my aesthetics. It was a pressure that I did not give myself, but was forced upon me, without reason.

So how do kids learn to treat each other in this way? Is it their parents? or perhaps they are most heavily influenced by their teachers, or friends? Or perhaps, it is society’s problem more broadly as ultimately, children are taught to use prejudice assessments from a young age, which often becomes imbued into their behavior as an automatic reaction.

Whatever the reason, there is no doubt that this judgement and abuse can truly affect people. Society as a whole needs to change, from what we portray as the right behavior to our children and how we ourselves act when it comes to treating others.