Woah! Let's revisit that again..."prejudice is an emotional commitment to ignorance". Prejudice by definition is a preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience.
I stumbled across this statement and instantly felt the personal connection. Prejudice comes from a place of fear of the unknown. Fear of putting aside our ego to open up to something that our preconceived notion might just be wrong about. For so long prejudices have been passed down, particularly those surrounding race. At this point, many of you are rolling eyes and ready to check out. The question gets asked, why does everything have to be about race? Because it is, because it always has been and because prejudices. If you can just "check out" and pretend these matters don't exist that is a privilege. Pissed? Maybe. Truth? Absolutely. Prejudices are false narratives made up to justify the shitty responses to whole groups of people. It's not until we can converse about these prejudices and operate more from a place of understanding that issues can be resolved.
How the hell does this relate to hair and beauty? Because we all have hair that grows on our bodies despite age, gender, race, sexual orientation, etc (with the exception rare genetic disorders) and all of us to some degree care about how we're presented or everyone would just be naked and completely natural. This is relevant to what I do because I am a stylist/makeup artist that specializes in all things hair and beauty... meaning I work with all hair textures and skin tones. I take pride in being able to service EVERYONE. Honestly, it shouldn't have to be something that one takes pride in, it should be the standard across the board but it's not. I'll talk about double standards in the industry at another time.
I've said for so long that I believe the beauty industry has the ability to bridge the gap between prejudices, truth, human experience, self love, compassion, and so much more. Beauty starts in the heart and life should be lived by creating a ripple of goodness starting with you at the core. Our job allows us to touch and interact with so many people and when we create a ripple of goodness with each person they do the same. Being a lesbian with a black wife I'm destroying the narratives and prejudices that people may have concerning 2 separate groups of people. I'm living my life by example and allowing those that I figuratively touch to see a "normalcy" correlated with my life and theirs. At the end of the day, we're all just people trying to get through this thing called life. Live it to the best of your ability and for gods sake be a damn good human being doing it. Treat ALL people with the same respect and decency that you would expect for yourself and loved ones. At this point, prejudices truly are an emotional commitment to ignorance.
Peace & Love
