Am I biased?

I really enjoyed Rebekah's presentation on mobile homes on Tuesday. I thought it was really interesting that she asked us to think about whether we had a personal bias against mobile homes. I did not raise my hand simply because I was not sure if I knew. I think that trailer parks in this country have been a target of horrible prejudice against people who are considered "less fortunate." This is most likely due to the capitalistic nature of our society that seems to think that people end up where they do because of laziness or stupidity. This may be true in some respects but does not mean that all people living in mobile homes should be boxed in together under these stereotypes. As I said in class, I worked in a mobile home one summer in high school through a summer camp program. This park was literally two blocks from the beach but few of the kids had ever been to the ocean before. I was amazed at how these kids interacted and lived there lives. Many of them wore old clothes and rode bikes without seats, but they joked about the video games and big screen t.v.'s they had in their homes. During the camp, one of the girls' father was arrested and sent to prison and all of the other kids acted like it happened all the time and that it wasn't a big deal. These were the kids who were made fun of in middle and high school. Even more interesting than seeing the younger children was interacting with their older brothers and sisters. People working at the camp with me were the classmates of these high schoolers and knew each other, but you could feel the teenage tension as they decided how to interact. You could see that there was not much hope in this place largely in part to the prejudices against the community. What I'm trying to say is that some of these people are victims of circumstance. It was an uncontrolable cost in the budget of the arrested man's family to have to pay bail money. It is an uncontrolable situation when you are in high school and your parents cannot afford to buy you clothes.
I know that this was not the point of Rebekah's presentation but I never considered before if I was prejudiced against mobile homes themselves. Everytime I think of a mobile home, I think of this summer camp. I decided that I am not prejudiced against the buildings themselves, but I cannot help relating them to people who are hopeless and frustrated with themselves and the world around them. I am all in favor of changing the stigma of these mobile homes as long as the stigma of the people living in them changes as well.