When I was interviewing Indiana University professor Eliot Smith about Intergroup Threat Theory and racial or ethnic conflict, he mentioned a scenario: You walk down the street, see a person with a skin color or religious clothing you hold prejudice to, and automatically assume you're going to have a bad experience. It's called affective forecasting.
When he first told me about this phenomenon, I couldn't quite fathom it. The only bad experiences I've had walking down the street might have been in middle school if I passed a "mean girl" from social studies class or when I was in Guatemala and knew a drunk guy was going to try to follow me around because I was white. But me, get a pit in the bottom of my stomach because of seeing a black person or a Muslim? I couldn't imagine it.
Then I interviewed Brandy Grayson, a continuing student at Ball State University, who told me of her everyday struggle. "I just can't wait to get done and for it to be over," she said of her required hours on campus. What makes her so eager to leave? In part, seeing Muslim men in the hall.
Listening to Grayson was difficult for me because I haven't had her experiences. She grew up in an incredibly rural environment where she said there was one black man in the whole county. I grew up in a college town since since elementary school have had friends who fasted for Ramadan. She can lost the names of friends who've lost their lives or been injured fighting in the Middle East. If I think hard, I can come up with one or two names of acquaintances whom I think were actually deployed. She has read some violent passages of the Quran; I have read some ones that seemed almost Christian.
That's why I look a group of Muslim women at a carnival and see sisters caring for their children, while she boards the campus shuttle bus and takes the seat farthest from any man who looks Middle Eastern.
For me, affective forecasting was a myth. For Grayson, it describes her daily reality.
But before you pity Grayson, or judge her, or box her into a category of prejudiced people (and especially lest you use worse words), I want you to know that she taught me something.
She taught me that "out" groups and "in" groups don't just exist in terms of race or religion. When I first found out about affective forecasting, I labeled people who do it because of prejudice "weak" in my mind. I assumed I would feel aversion and repulsion if I ever heard someone speak about it.
When I spoke with Grayson, I realized that she is not weak. She is a strong army wife, a mother, a student, a career woman. She has done many things that I hope to do in my life, things that are worthy of admiration. But because of affective forecasting, I had a hard time accepting our conversation. I wanted to correct her, to defend Muslims, to invite her to rethink. Though I bit my tongue in the name of journalistic objectivity, I certainly had an opinion about her.
And now, as I write this, I realize I held prejudice too. But my prejudice - and the affective forecasting it inspired in me - was toward prejudice people.
Now, that's a humbling realization.
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