[Image: a series of tweets by Courtney!!! Milan, twitter user @courtneymilan.
Transcribed: I know it may be futile to point this all out, but the Red Hen case (and resulting commentary) demonstrate that a lot of people don’t know the difference between prejudice and exercising judgement. It is huge.
Prejudice is literally prejudging people based on characteristics like race, gender, sexual orientation. It is abhorrent because it judges people as a group for the harms of others.
I am completely opposed to prejudice. I strongly believe in judging people for who they are.
Exercising judgement means you look at an individual and ask what that individual has done. You judge them on the basis of their actions. This is literally what we are striving for as a society - to judge on the basis of individual characteristics, instead of prejudging a person.
So let’s take a restaurant. If someone walks in and you say “I’m not serving you because you’re black” or “I’m not serving you because you’re Jewish” or “I’m not serving you because you’re gay,” that’s prejudice and it’s bad.
If someone walks in and starts cussing out your waitstaff, you have EVERY RIGHT to throw that person out. Even if they are also a black, Jewish, gay person. Why? Because you’re throwing them out for their *actions*. That’s not *pre* judging. That’s judging after the fact.
Okay, so take a step back. Someone walks in and your waiter says, “I’m not comfortable serving them. They accosted me on the street earlier and I don’t know what they’ll do now.” STILL not prejudice. That’s still judgement after the fact, based on actions the person took.
Okay, now let’s say that the waiter in question says, “this person says that people like me are ‘animals’ on national TV while representing the president of the United Stated, and I don’t feel comfortable serving her.”
That’s the Red Hen case. It’s judgement - based on her actions - after the fact. It’s not prejudice. She wasn’t thrown out because she was a woman. She wasn’t even thrown out because she was a Republican. She was thrown out because of what she did.
It is the literal opposite of prejudice to judge people on the basis of their own behaviour, It’s why MLK admonished us to judge people on the content of their character.
This is nothing like the Masterpiece Cake case. Nothing. Refusing to make cakes for gay people because they are gay is *prejudice* in action. Refusing to make a cake for Sarah Huckabee Sanders because she supports and upholds inhumane policies is judgement after the fact.
