Prevention in Becoming the “Real” You
同志社国際高等学校

３年

秋

山

このみ

Are you looking at people or things without prejudice? Are you positivethat you are not making up bad images in your head without knowing them?
Today, I would like to explain the two types of prejudice and discriminationthat I have felt in my past experiences.
One type of prejudice is the prejudice against natural occurrences. Natural
occurrences are things that you are born with, such as nationality, race,gender, and the ways of thinking. People are being discriminated against forbeing a foreigner or having different thoughts, and they are suffering because
they are being discriminated against for something that they were born withhistory, for example, ethnic strife and genocide. However, even though there
are people who have prejudice against them, it is also true that a lot ofpeople actually have understandings for that unavoidable occurrence. Thepeople who have understanding for them are increasing, so it is starting tobecome accepted, but prejudice against them is still remaining.
I, myself, learned an important lesson in the Unites States, when myfriend asked me, “What do you think about gays and lesbians?” To be honest,
I did not have a good impression back then, because I thought that loving
people of the same gender was not right, or forbidden. So, I smiled at her
uncomfortably. Then, the next moment, my friend got angry and said, “Whycan’t you respect them and the way they live? You are just having prejudiceagainst them because of what everyone says.” I was overwhelmed by herwords. The things she said were true and I got embarrassed at myself forbeing influenced by the majority too much. It made me realize that I was
making bad judgments about things I didn’t even know.
There is another type of prejudice, which is the prejudice against theoutcome of personal choices, and this is becoming a more open type ofprejudice recently. We have rights to choose jobs, religions, hobbies, etc. So, itis thought that we are responsible for the outcome of our choices, unlike thenaturaloccurrences.

Peoplearebeing51

discriminatedagainstfordoing

高校生―Ｉ部門and cannot change. This is something that has been happening throughoutsomething that they want to do or like doing, and it means that they cannot
do things freely without thinking about negative views. This is something thatis starting to become more common as a result of our increased access to
information about specific interests, and freedom to pursue them. Also, themajority don’t feel bad to discriminate these personal choices because even if
they do, they won’t get criticized for doing so, while they would get criticizedfor discriminating against natural occurrences.
I felt this type of prejudice after coming back to Japan and getting into
watching Japanese anime. Anime has been one of Japan’s traditional culturesand is loved by people all over the world, but a lot of Japanese do not have agood impression of it. My friends actually show disdain with their facial
expressions when I talk about anime. Since this happens to the anime fansvery often, a lot of them try to not let their friends know that they likeanime. To talk about my own experience, on the day before Halloween back
高校生―Ｉ部門in 9th grade, I was wearing a costume of one of the characters in my favorite
anime. However, my brother, who went to the same school, came up to meand said, “Don’t wear that tomorrow because I don’t want people to think mysister is otaku.” I was shocked. Otaku is a word that is often used to describe
people who like anime or other subcultures. They are being looked at aspeople who cannot interfere with the society and are only looking at the madeup world that they want to believe in. I felt so mortified and beaten up by
the power of bad images and this experience is still hurting me and I feelpain as I am talking right now.
I explained two types of prejudice and discrimination, but the fact thatthey are both suffering from negative views is the same. The feeling of being
watched with a negative view cannot be compared in the meaning of which ismore serious. Now, please ask yourselves again. Are you looking at people orthings without prejudice? Prejudice is something that you learn from living inyour environment, so it is hard to change your ways of thinking. However, if
you try to get to know the people or things that are being watched withprejudice before making judgments, it will definitely allow you to change yourpoint of view. So please don’t start off with hate. I want this world to be abetterplace,

solet’s

takea

step

forwardtoreachthatgoal.

Your

understandings will allow people to become proud of themselves and theirchoices.

52