'Prejudice' in Real Life

Have you ever been part of a group of people that were unkind to one or more individuals? Describe the circumstances. What caused you to behave the way you did? How did you feel then? How do you feel about the circumstances / events in retrospect?

It was only last year when I had seen such circumstances.

Last year, 1I2 (currently 2I2) often had discriminations against some particular members of our class. There was a boy named Tom(Artificial name). They ignored him, neglected him and often bad-mouthed him. I have to admit that since the first day of school, I already had a bad impression Tom. He had a poor posture and he acts differently from the rest of us. In other words, he is weird. He kept making weird noises (on purpose) and tried to taunt us (with silly actions and words) and I began to dislike him. I began to avoid him. At the same time, I could sense that some other classmates of mine were also calling Tom names. Nobody wanted to work with him for projects and assignments because he was not very serious in his work. Tom was often late for school and also absent from school without reason.

In the later part of the year, Tom skipped school even more frequently and whenever he came back, he would definitely be made fun of. Soon, we learnt that Tom was addicted to computer games and slept at 3am to 4am each day, causing him to wake up late and therefore be late for school. At that time, I don't really pay much attention to Tom. Because I feel that he shouldn't belong to this class. I gave him some advices in the past but he turned a deaf ear to them.

After the National Day holidays, we never see Tom again. We phoned him but his family members simply said he slept very late and could not wake up. From them on, I never paid any attention to him again. But my classmates often bad-mouth him in front of teachers. However, I stopped them whenever they wanted to spread rumors about him. I felt that had we been more patient and caring towards Tom, he would not have skipped school too much and he can even make friends with us. I think our class should have organise some enriching activities for him to curb his addiction. He is probably afraid to attend school as he often get mocked at. This was not surprising. But I guess, this was not entirely Tom's fault. Some of us were to be blamed too. For example, I already had a poor impression of him since Day 1. I think some of my classmates were like me too. Thus, this might have caused him to feel lonely and depressed and led him to the wrong path.

I learnt that one should not have a prejudice against others as this would affect their lives dramatically and they might feel hopeless and depressed.