Reflect on your areas of prejudice. Where does prejudice still hide in your heart? Do you pretend to be tolerant even as you harbor intolerance? How does your prejudice manifest? Prejudice is hard to own if it does not fit your self-image. What part of your self-image feels betrayed by having this prejudice?
This exercise is difficult. The question to consider when approaching it is, do you want to die with your prejudices or begin to understand them while you live? Merely thinking about them is not sufficient. You need to connect with them while they are active. If you can be aware of both your prejudice and the fear that drives it, you will make significant inroads toward understanding how and why it operates. Sit down and have a heartfelt conversation with someone about whom you harbor a prejudice. Watch how your mind wants to fix and hold that person in a predetermined way. Can listening occur in the middle of this projection, or are you constantly asserting your old ideas about who he is? Can you connect with the person's humanity? Can you access his pain? Are you able to own the anger that you project onto him? Accept the prejudice as coming from you and not as being true in itself. Owning your prejudice is the first step toward healing.
— Rodney Smith in The Wisdom of Listening by Mark Brady