There is a kind of cross we bear that isn’t carved of wood or crowned in thorns. Instead, it is hammered together in silence, passed down through generations and coded into our everyday headlines. Prejudice. It is an ancient, stubborn burden that doesn’t always scream; often, it just smolders; quiet, pervasive, and a slow undoing of our humanity.
We often treat prejudice as something that belongs to “them” the extremists or the bigots on the news. But prejudice is far more insidious. It isn’t just a weapon we wield against others; it is a weight we carry that stunts our own souls.
When we let bias take root, it shrinks the mind. It reduces vast human landscapes into narrow, suffocating lanes. Instead of meeting individuals, we meet categories: The unemployed becomes a statistic. The woman becomes a trope. The struggling become a label. Once we decide someone fits a “frame,” we stop seeing the person entirely. We only see the wood we built around them.
If prejudice is so heavy, why do we drag it across generations? For many, it offers the illusion of certainty. In a complex, frightening world, prejudice provides easy answers to hard questions. It is lazy thinking dressed up as truth, offering someone to blame when the system feels broken or our own lives feel uncertain.
But prejudice is a thief. It robs us of true connection. The chance to find friendship in unexpected places, the thrill of being wrong, the beautiful moment when reality shatters our assumptions. Even spiritual lightness the freedom that comes when we stop defending a lie.
Letting go of “respectable” prejudice, the kind that wears the perfume of politeness is not easy. It requires a steady walk through the fires of self-examination. It demands that we acknowledge how this silent cross has been breaking our own backs, not just the hearts of others.
Unlearning is uncomfortable but what waits on the other side is a lighter load and a fuller heart. It is the path to a world where we all finally get to be a little freer.