Reply #31: He didn't see me as a Mexican [View All]

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He saw me as a person.

One of my sister in-in-laws was married to a Philippino and my father-in-law loved him also, and adored the grandchild from that marriage.

Stereotypes are place holders for things that a person does not know very much about; They are prejudices in the literal sense of the word, pre-judgments, or judgments before the facts.

What is important, to me, is how a person reacts once he has facts to make a judgment. If the person still acts based on the prejudices, then there's a real problem.

I saw that my father in law never treated people he knew personally in the way he spoke of abstract collective classes. If my father in law had acted based on his stated prejudices, my reaction would have been very different, and much harsher.

I never spoke to him about it, because I did not want to embarrass him by shattering the cognitive dissonance. You see, I loved him too. Very much.

Love blinds us all.