Cherry Healey: How to Get a Life - Episode 4 - How prejudiced are we?

First Broadcast: 
Wednesday 11 July 2012 at 21:00
BBC Three
Renegade Pictures (UK) Ltd.






As a society, we initially judge people on their appearance.  We all do.

But that's not a fault on our part.  That's how we are made  - our eyes gather information much more quickly than our ears.  If someone us speaking to us, we can see them directly, whereas our ears have to wait until the end of the sentence to process an adequate opinion.

I watched this programme to open my eyes. And it did.  But even though I learned a lot from watching the programme, it hasn't changed my views completely.

Cherry met a few people who are fed up of being judged purely on their appearance. But everyone is.

Alison is in a wheelchair, and is also very independent.  As society, we look at people in wheelchairs as people who need help, and Alison has shown that this isn't the case.  She says that if she needs help, she will ask for it.

I feel this puts able-bodied people in a difficult position.  We are never sure if we should offer help, because we do not want to steal a disabled person's independence away from them, but we also do not want to come across as rude for not offering help.  An act of kindness could become an annoyance, and have the opposite effect to the one that was intended.

I really admire Alison.  She is persuing her dream just as she would have had she not had the accident.  She even says she is doing it to spite her wheelchair - "Ha, you're not going to control me and ruin my life."

I know you have to go through a situation like that to really understand what it's like, and she's made me re-think the way I see people in wheelchairs.  Just because they cannot walk, they do not always require help.

I also admired Rebecca the firefighter.  Her strength and determination shows that she really should not be a victim of prejudice - she is just as capable as men.

Moving on to Gurdev, who is a Sikh and carries around a dagger under his jacket as an essential symbol of his religion.  I can fully understand how prejudiced views can take over.  Knife crime is on the rise on the UK and it's very understandable that a lot of people would find it difficult to trust someone who carries around a dagger, and would even see them as a threat.  This, to me, is the only truly controversial issue covered in the programme, as the prejudiced views are actually making an attempt to stop someone fully persuing their religion.

As with every other episode in this series, I admired Cherry's honesty. 

At the beginning of every programme, she expresses her concerns, saying that she feels the world is running away from her, whilst, on the screen, we see her standing with the goings-on of the city sped up behind her - an effect which makes her honesty relate to the real world and also, us. With her revealing her thoughts so openly, the programme helps us come to terms with our own opinions and not feel so guilty about them.


“What unites us is our desire to be treated as individuals.”

Image from: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01k77mc