Soft bigotry

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Soft bigotry is a term to describe forms of bigotry which have all the of the hallmarks of bigotry (that is, they prescribe behaviors to people, not because of what they do, but based on an unrelated grouping), but, because the persecution they cause is minor, they're typically not viewed as bigotry by the general public.

To contrast hard bigotry with soft bigotry, consider someone saying a person is untrustworthy because they're Chinese. Such a statement would be viewed as racist and disapproved of by society (hard bigotry), but, saying a person is untrustworthy because their astrological sign is a Gemini often doesn't cause similar revulsion (soft bigotry) even though it's as equally unfounded. Strangely, in many societies, it's okay to hate someone on when they were born, but not where they were born.

Examples

The table below describes various forms of soft bigotry.

Bigotry Description Examples
Astrology Astrology prescribes behaviors to people based, not on evidence, but primitive magical thinking. Scorpios are violent, Tauruses are stubborn, etc.
Blood type personality This more recent superstition ascribes behavior based on a person's blood-type. It's popular in Japan and South Korea, despite being entirely baseless. People with blood type O+ are rebellious, so don't hire them, look for AB+ instead.
Generations Although people are becoming more aware of ageism as a form of bigotry, cultures still seem hyper-focused on labeling generations. Generations are typically chosen in relation to when people are born relative to cultural events, but the wide variance among sociologists shows they're assigned quite arbitrarily. Useful statistics can be generated around these arbitrary groups, but the bigotry really arises when people being prescribing behaviors to people based on these arbitrary groupings. Millennials are cheap, Boomers are ignorant, etc.
Personality tests Although personality tests often claim to be based on science and evidence, most of them are pseudo-science at best. The Myers–Briggs Type Indicator, for example, is based on the mysticism of Carl Jung. The categories typically result in prescriptive behavior base on how someone answers a few self-reported questions rather than their actual behavior. Many companies even use these to decide who they should hire. ESFPs make terrible employees, never date someone who scores low on a TAT.

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