"Prejudice is a disease we can never get rid of." Discuss

While we cannot discredit efforts that have potential to put up a strong fight against prejudice in society, I do not think the complete eradication of prejudice possible to achieve.
As long as there are differences, there will be stereotypes. Governments may try to foster social cohesion by deducing strategies such as implementing policies to ensure that different races live in close proximity to each other. For example, the Singapore Government has implemented an 'ethnic quota to match the national demography for public housing living' (http://www.jamesgomeznews.com/article.php?AID=13). This promotes more opportunities for interactions between the different races in Singapore. While it has effectively encouraged communication across the different races, the fact still remains that for the majority of the citizens, the people they share one roof with would be people of the same race since they are from the same family. Thus, understanding across different races would not reach the intimate level achieved by intra-racial ties. As a result, the threat of prejudice is rampant even in the most cosmopolitan cities, proving my point that prejudice cannot be completely exterminated.
Other than racial prejudice, social stereotypes also exist in society. For example, men with large builds and arms covered in tattoos are often seen as members of the underworld. Stereotypical characteristics include extreme violence and aggressiveness, and as a result people often avoid contact with people with many tattoos. While it is true that gangsters often sport tattoos 'to indicate facts about their criminal behavior, prison sentences, and organizational affiliation' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tattoo), tattoos are also widely regarded as works of art. In fact, tattoos have been around for several thousand years and have links with the cultural heritage of several communities. Therefore it is highly inaccurate and unfair for people to generalise people with tattoos as gang members and criminals; but this widespread belief serves as proof that prejudice lives amongst us in our every day lives and mentalities, and thus it will be highly difficult, if not entirely impossible, to rid the world of prejudice.