People, societies, and governments are not adverse to using all sorts of dubious justifications to take advantage of what they perceive to be and have therefore designated as the “other.” The reason that this is so, is often not really because the other, in actuality, is inherently inferior or subhuman, but rather it really comes down to the practicality that describing or proselytizing that the other is inferior, makes it far easier to get those that are credulous or lazy in thought, to believe in the righteousness of what is so being propagated by those in authority as to what needs to be done. In other words, prejudices first begin from a desire to take advantage of the other, and the most effective means to do so, is often to utilize surface characteristics of the other as that exploitation point.
That is to say, the main reason why there is, for instance, racial prejudice based upon essentially a given person’s skin color, is the fact that this is quite obviously an easy visible way to identify the other, and when those that have the upper hand, can arbitrarily decide that one skin color is superior, whereas, the other skin color represents the inferior, it makes it a relatively easy sell to those that are considered to be of that superior skin color, to buy into exploiting the other, because people and societies, understand that in that exploitation, there are material advantages to them by cheating those that are labeled as inferior – by thus precluding those labeled as inferior from having their fair rights to liberty, freedom, labor, shelter, and the like.
In life, there is typically going to be some logic behind how some prejudice came to be the prevailing orthodox view, of which, the easiest way to understand prejudicial attitudes is to first to figure out, by that prejudice so being enforced, what advantages do those that are superior, thereby reap, from this mindset. Oftentimes, what is reaped is the taking of resources away from those so labeled as inferior, which signifies that quite frankly there is no better price in the obtaining of those things, such as valuable land, minerals, goods, livestock, and produce then the price of zero. So too, by labeling certain people as being inferior, all sorts of uncivil behavior can be directed towards them, without those that are doing such deeds, losing face in their own community, because when the other is seen as something other than fully human, pretty much, just about anything done to them will be perceived within that society, as being fair game to actually do.
So then, while people and societies may seem to be able to justify why their particular prejudice makes sense, the fact of the matter is, that this is just the excuse so being utilized, so that those in power can exploit the other, to their heart’s content. After all, when a given people and society can exploit the other, by unfairly taking advantage of or cheating the other of their material possessions and opportunity, along with wringing the bread from the sweat of the other’s labor, then prejudice will so happen, until such a time as humankind properly comprehends and understands, that all of humankind have actually been created equally.