A recent study by global aid charity Oxfam found Mexicans who identify as indigenous and have darker skin tones suffer greater disadvantages.
Many Mexicans also face discrimination because of their dress, weight, height, and needless to say, religious beliefs and sexual preferences.
Down deep in our brain core, our amygdala, we are still fighting off tribal enemies and clinging to those who are of the same likeness of mind, body and eyebrow size. Many of these tendencies are evolution-built biases we hang on to today.
We all have biases. Over everything. Toothpaste, cars, foods, actors, pets and even what we choose to read (believe it or not, some people don’t read this column).
When biases around ethnicities, beliefs, lifestyles or skin color morph into accusatory pre-judgments that convict individuals to undeserved punishment of all sorts – out of fear, insecurity, anger or just because “they don’t belong” – these produce a retrograde class of people, bigots. Bigotry is a bias gone psychotic.
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