"Explain the causes and effects of prejudice."

“Blacks are uncivilized.”, “females are emotional.”, “fat guys are stupid.”, “Muslims are terrorists.” … They must have sound familiar. Because there must be one or more that is or was once your own thought. They are prejudices. Prejudice is a prejudgment or comment to objects, a person or a group based on incomplete or unconfirmed information which is unilateral or even mistaken. The feature of prejudices is that it is extensive and usually covering and prejudging individuals with the characteristics of a wider group. Every one of us was born with prejudice, because it is a very important skill for us to survive. Be afraid when darkness falls on you because “dangers are covered within the darkness.” ,spit out when mum is feeding you with bitter medicine because “bitter things are poisonous”, these subconscious actions of a baby are the natural instinct, prejudices that our brain has given to us to avoid dangers. The harm that these born prejudices can bring to our society is negligible. But when prejudice changes from a natural and individual action to a group wide behavior against another group of people, then it becomes not as nice as it was. Back to the year of 1942AD, a Spanish navigator has sailed to the west from the land of Spain to prove his theory that it is possible to reach the eastern empires of China and India by sailing to the west instead of the old paths to the west. His name is Christopher Columbus. But what he found was not what he expected. A land that is entirely stranger to the Europeans, America was discovered. With the spirit of colonialism, European populations started to immigrate to the “New world”. This discovery plus the lack of work power in the new colonies foreshadowed the next 4 centuries of slavery life for the blacks. Beginning from the year 1441, all the way to the year 1865, over one hundred million black slaves were shipped to the land of America from Africa. They were stacked inside the cargo hold side by side like all other goods. The whites gave them each a price, prices no more than tobaccos. The landlords in America will buy these “things” back to their plantations and make them to do dangerous works or manual labor such as mining and planting. The slaves were treated inhumanly, most of them died in a young age. Some numbers of slaves tried to fight back and rebelled but they were squelched. The slave trade has never been repealed until year 1865 when the United Staes of America (Union) won the American civil war. The leader of the Union was the 16th president of the United States of America, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln opposed the inhuman practices of slavery and realized the huge productivity limit created by slavery. As the abolition of slavery, the blacks have finally gained their freedom.