What is prejudice?

Prejudice is when we decide what we think about someone before we've got to know them. Literally we "pre-judge". 

It means seeing someone as an image, rather than a person. We assume something bad about them because of what they are, rather than understanding who they are.

Prejudice is inside all of us. We all make judgements about other people, and sometimes those judgements are unfair. We all need to look at ourselves and admit when we get things wrong.

When people close their minds, their prejudice can get much worse. Under the Nazis, most Germans became so prejudiced against Jewish people that they agreed to them being destroyed. This was the extreme prejudice that led to the murder of 6 million Jews, including Anne Frank.

What is discrimination?

Discrimination is the damage caused by prejudice. When we discriminate against someone, it means we treat them less well than other people because of our prejudice about them. The Nazis discriminated against Anne Frank just because she was Jewish

What can you do?

Remember your personal safety and wellbeing is of the utmost importance, if you feel that you, or someone you know, are in imminent danger because of a hate crime please dial 999.

If you are experiencing prejudice and/or discrimination, remember that you can talk to a trusted and supportive family member/friend/teacher or you can turn to a charity for help and support.

If you want to report an incident of prejudice and discrimination, you can turn to:

For reporting all forms of hate crime in England, Wales and Northern Ireland:

Stop Hate UK http://stophateuk.org 0800 138 1625 

True Vision (For reporting all hate crime) https://www.report-it.org.uk/

For reporting all forms of hate crime in Scotland:

Police Scotland: https://scotland.police.uk/advice-and-information/hate-crime/#

For reporting specific types of hate crime:

TellMAMA (For reporting Islamophobia) https://tellmamauk.org/ 0800 456 1226

CST (For reporting anti-Semitism) https://cst.org.uk/antisemitism/what-is-antisemitism 0800 032 3263

Gate Herts (Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community) https://reportracismgrt.com/report-racism/ 07534 790 984

The Monitoring Group (Reporting Racism) https://tmg-uk.org 020 7582 7438

Galop (LGBT+ anti-violence charity) https://galop.org.uk 020 7704 2040

If you have been impacted by discrimination

If you want to talk to someone about the impact, as well as the organisations listed above, you can speak to Childline https://www.childline.org.uk/get-support/ 0800 1111