Prejudice is pre judging. The term is the combination of the prefix "pre" with the action of "judging". But what precisely does "pre" mean? Pre what? Definitions of prejudice pull in the following concepts: "unreasonable", "adverse", "unfair", "irrational", "hateful".

But let us for a moment stop talking about words and instead talk about reality. In reality, we constantly judge things and update our judgements. We judge how fast an oncoming car is travelling to make a decision about whether or not we should pull out into traffic. And we update that judgement multiple times as the car approaches. We judge whether a 20-something black man in sneakers in an alley way in the bad part of town at night might present a greater-than-average security risk to our billfold, and we update that judgement when we notice the wrist tag from the club he came out of to have a smoke. We judge whether a person may engage in gossip about other people based on the fact that she is female.

When I was younger, I tried to not use any statistical information at all about other people. Everybody was entirely neutral and empty and I was petrified of judging anything about them at all lest I be accused of prejudice, lest I get something wrong and offend them. Heavens forbid someone should think I was unfair to them (I'm very fair minded) or hateful. But this did not work well for me. Maybe it was nice for other people, but I was a highly ineffective person. I was socially inept. And in some cases it was downright dangerous.

Now, rather than avoiding judgement, I work on being as nimble as possible with my judgements. Update them rapidly; don't hold them tightly. This is better. If a judgement is distinctly negative, you can give people the benefit of the doubt unless that puts you at too much risk. When a judgement isn't negative and people are bothered simply by an expression of a judgement over a group in the abstract... I think all you can do is apologize and move on.

In certain situations, people need to avoid certain kinds of prejudgement altogether, like if you are a traffic cop you don't want to pull someone over for "driving while black." But in the vast majority of situations, you will commit microaggressions and sometimes people will express discontent, but you will be more effective.

We should all work on being more tolerant of microaggressions, and not presuming the person is hateful or stubborn in their sometimes-gonna-be-wrong judgements.