What moments have made you aware of your own prejudice?

A few. White Afrikaner South African born early 80s. University, a few years after the end of apartheid. I thought I was liberal and sat with some black friends having drinks. And argued about why they are so sensitive to the word kaffer. Had clever justifications about its origin and even went as far as saying that I can call a terrible white man a cunt, so why cant i refer to a terrible black man as a kaffer? A person whonis now a dear friend responded with “ call a cunt a cunt but why do you need to include a reference to his colour? Why does it matter? It means that your first reaction is not that this guy is a cunt… but that you instantly associated it with him being black. Big realisation right there. Changed my outlook completely. And even if people dont use the word… it always stands out to me when they make that connection rather than isolating the dissaproval of the action from the prejudice. Even a sentence like “That bitch at work” has layers to it often  for characteristics that would not be disproved by a male. A few years later i was in london, bartending in a gap year as us (white) south africans did back then.  A guy sat at the bar and started telling me how his grandfather was fighting as boers against slavery in the anglo boer war. I was working ao could not argue that it was not about slavery and it was about gold and… but it really struck me how our “facts” could differ so strongly between educated people. It stuck with me and made me question everything Ive learnt as propoganda. I went back and reread the history from a neutral source and realised the truth lied somewhere in the middle and was regarding land rights, labour markets and an open market costs etc. Yes and gold. But far from the evil english came to steal the land and just burnt everything down. Not prejudice but more about questioning my perspective. Another big moment that. There are tons. Involving how we thought the black kids who came to our school on a sponsorship program were clearly lazy or daft… because they had poor grades. And that they were doing homework in groups after school so they can help each other. They didnt do any sport either, it was weird. Many years later in casual conversation cathcing up with one of the guys lets call him Wayne (whonis now a doctor) he was saying how its so nice that his kids dont have to leave for school at 4:30 in the morning coming in from the township and going home at 5pm fir a two hour commute and that they can play sport because they have electricity at home to do homework rather than at school. Hit me hard. Especially since Wayne was a strong student and got grades close to mine. i just had the luxury of walking home and could pull an all nighter if I needed to. Privilege goes beyond money, it’s inherited. I dont think we need to apologise for it but be aware it makes a difference. Wayne might be a doctor now and his kids reap some benefit… but wayne still needs to consider his parents who have not had the financial and health benefits my parents had. So I can give everything to my kids, whilst wayne is still paying tax for a generation back. It will take a few generations for his family to start from the same point as mine.