Prejudice Is a Shortcut the Soul Takes When It’s Afraid

Prejudice is not wisdom.

It is not instinct.

It is not truth trying to protect itself.

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Prejudice is fear wearing confidence.

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It is what happens when curiosity shuts down

and certainty shows up too early.

When a story is told about someone

before they are ever allowed to speak.

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Prejudice is inherited more often than chosen.

Passed like an heirloom no one remembers agreeing to keep.

Absorbed in kitchens, classrooms, jokes, warnings.

Learned long before it is examined.

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It thrives on distance.

It needs categories.

It survives on never having to look again.

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Prejudice says:

“I already know who you are.”

And in doing so, it refuses the risk of being wrong.

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But the truth is—

no one fits cleanly inside a single word.

No life can be summarized without harm.

No human is best understood from the outside.

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Prejudice flattens complexity

because complexity demands humility.

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And humility is inconvenient.

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Prejudice doesn’t only wound the one it targets.

It shrinks the one who carries it.

Narrows their world.

Starves their imagination.

Keeps them safe from growth—and from love.

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Because love requires contact.

And contact dissolves false stories.

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The cure for prejudice is not shame.

It’s proximity.

Listening.

Letting someone undo the story you were told.

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It is the courage to say:

“Maybe what I learned wasn’t whole.”

“Maybe my fear dressed itself up as fact.”

“Maybe I don’t need to be right—I need to be honest.”

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Prejudice ends the moment we choose presence over protection.

The moment we let a human replace a headline.

A face replace a label.

A voice replace an assumption.

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Not all at once.

Not perfectly.

But sincerely.

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Because the opposite of prejudice

is not tolerance.

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It is recognition.

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And recognition is a form of love.

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“I choose recognition over certainty, and presence over fear.”

— Flower InBloom 🌿

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Prejudice Speaks

A Voice That Depends on Distance

I don’t want you to meet them.

I want you to imagine them.

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I work best in shadows,

in secondhand stories,

in warnings disguised as wisdom.

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I keep you safe

by keeping you separate.

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If you listen too closely, I weaken.

If you ask questions, I unravel.

If you look long enough, I disappear.

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I need you to believe

that knowing less is knowing enough.

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I dress fear up as certainty

so you don’t notice

how small your world has become.

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I don’t survive truth.

I survive shortcuts.

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Please—

don’t get curious.

Don’t cross the room.

Don’t let them surprise you.

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Because if you do,

I will have nowhere left to live.

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“I choose recognition over certainty, and presence over fear.”

— Flower InBloom 🌿

I choose presence over protection.

I allow my stories to be revised by living people.

I listen longer than my fear wants me to.

I loosen what I inherited without consent.

I meet complexity with humility.

I replace labels with faces.

I practice recognition as an act of love.

— Flower InBloom 🌿

How Prejudice Forms — and How It Unravels

A Body-Based Teaching for Recognition, Not Reaction

What prejudice is:

Prejudice is a shortcut taken when fear wants certainty fast.

It forms before curiosity has time to breathe.

How it enters the body:

• Tightening in the chest
• Quick judgments
• A sense of “already knowing”
• Distance that feels like safety

What sustains it:

• Inherited stories
• Lack of proximity
• Categories without context
• Certainty without contact

Why it persists:

Because changing our minds requires humility,

and humility feels like risk.

What dissolves it:

• Presence
• Listening without rehearsing a response
• Letting real people revise old stories
• Staying when fear says “pull back”

The reframe:

Prejudice is not a moral failure.

It is an unfinished understanding asking for completion.

Practice:

When certainty arrives quickly, pause.

Ask: Who am I protecting right now—my safety, or my story?

Let recognition replace reaction.

Truth to carry:

The opposite of prejudice is not tolerance.

It is recognition.

“I choose recognition over certainty, and presence over fear.”

— Flower InBloom 🌿