Can acts of kindness overcome prejudice?

"50 ¶ And one of them smote the servant of the high priest, and cut off his right ear. 51 And Jesus answered and said, Suffer ye thus far. And he touched his ear, and healed him. 52 Then Jesus said unto the chief priests, and captains of the temple, and the elders, which were come to him, Be ye come out, as against a thief, with swords and staves?"

Luke 22:50-52

I've been doing this thing recently in order to contradict negative thoughts, specifically to feeling underappreciated. When I feel like someone is underappreciating me, I take a few minutes to find something specific that I appreciate about the person. And then I tell them what I appreciate about them. I've been doing this same thing when someone does something that annoys me. I respond by choosing a specific act of kindness that the person would appreciate. And then I perform that act of kindness.

This idea has felt sort of self-abusive. Why should I do something kind to someone who has literally just done something that annoys me? I wouldn't recommend this to anyone in a toxic or abusive relationship, but even great relationships have moments of annoyance.

The first time I did this, it changed my attitude and allowed me to let go of the frustration or anger I was feeling. I expected this would happen because it's difficult to voluntarily serve someone out of frustration or anger. What I didn't expect was the long term effect of acts of kindness. This played out in a relationship where someone was regularly accusing me of doing something I hadn't done. These accusations were unwarranted and completely against who I am as a person, but they were coming from someone I deeply cared about.

Every time I thought about these accusations, I took action and did something kind related to the situation. I was purely trying to change my mindset and really didn't care about serving my accuser and I frankly had no idea how to change the situation. This person believed something about my character that simply wasn't true and I didn't know where that was coming from or how to address it. But what ended up happening over time, is this person recognized my true character. I was not expecting this at all. I was only trying to change my mood, but I had inadvertently began resolving the conflict that was putting me in a bad mood in the first place.

After several months, I could tell that this person was noticing who I was by questions they would ask me or comments they would make. They were surprised by my acts of kindness because they had assumed I wasn't that kind of person and I knew that the surprise meant they were reflecting on their own beliefs about me.

People are strongly grounded in their assumptions, prejudice, and ultimately their beliefs about a situation. However, specific people, over time, are able to be convinced that their beliefs are wrong. Nothing can be done with people that are closed minded -- those relationships will always be toxic. But for those that are open minded, it doesn't hurt to try and convince someone by repeated acts that they have misunderstood who I am.

Of course, some people will take me at my word about what kind of person I am, but prejudice is particularly sticky because it is grounded in past memories and beliefs and probably won't be changed by direct confrontation.