Discrimination lives within us

Discrimination is defined as the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, esp. on the grounds of race, age, or sex. In the world history, discrimination such as the discrimination towards the black people in the Unites States and the Holocaust that killed approximately 6 million Europe Jews had changed the live of many people. Now, even in a century as advanced as the twenty-first century, the society still cannot run away from discrimination. Every day, we are discriminating others without us knowing because these actions already became a habit or even a part of us.

               

         “Discrimination is a hellhound that gnaws at Negroes in every waking moment of their lives to remind them that the lie of their inferiority is accepted as truth in the society dominating them”

                                                                                                          -Martin Luther King,Jr.

               

In the seventeen century, African arrived in present day Unites States as slaves and as time passes, they got their citizenship. However, they are treated as second class citizens. System of laws and practices were set up in order to continue the total disenfranchisement of African Americans for years even after slavery was begrudgingly abolished. For example, black people people in US are more likely to live in poverty as their white counterparts by many times over. They usually live in slum areas and they do not get equality in education and medical treatment.  When a Black is caught involved in the murder or fight, the juries are prejudiced towards them and Black people are more likely to go to prison and receive harsher sentences than White people. Then came Martin Luther King, a civil right activist, who epitomised what the civil rights campaign was all about and he brought massive international cover to the movement.

                For much of history, Jews have been the target of prejudice and hatred, which has resulted in Jewish discrimination, persecution, and expulsion from various lands.  Jews were forced to live in foreign lands for thousands of years, starting with the expulsion of the Israelites from modern-day Israel, Jordan, and parts of Lebanon over 2,500 years ago. Jews have then become scapegoats for various reason such as the hardship faced by many during the Great Depression . In Adolf Hitler’s famous book Mein Kampf (My Struggle), He blamed the plight of Germany at the end of World War I on an international Jewish conspiracy and used terms such as "extirpation" and “extermination" in relation to the Jews. As a precursor to the Holocaust, the Nazis passed laws that prohibited Jews from continuing to take part in society.

                In the nineteen century, the lure of gold promptly made California the most culturally and racially diverse society the world had ever known. There were people of many different nationalities who went there to try their luck. Prejudice and discrimination against people of different colour intensified when the local people claimed that the immigrants had threatened their job . The government then implemented Foreign Miners Tax that forced the immigrants to pay $20 per month, in hope that they will leave when they could no longer afford that large sum of money.                 

While in modern world today, discrimination took place when we were as young as preschoolers, when we start to mix around and make friends. This is when human nature kicks in and we will start to mingle with those we feel comfortable with. Those that speak our language and have similar interest as we do would usually be those in our friend circle. In school, nerds will always be with the nerds and the cool kids will always be with the cool kids. This mindset will be there even when we are in secondary school or college, were we only mix with the person of your kind              

When you open the newspapers and saw a robbery as headline, the first thing we will be thinking is the type of people that would be robbers. Those poor, uneducated illegal immigrants from Indonesia or Bangladesh who are living in the squatter area or those people with darker complexion would normally be the ones getting all the blame. We blame them for posing harm to the nation and cause the society in fear. As young kids, our parents start planting the impression that all illegal immigrants or those with darker complexion are “bad guys” in us and ask us to keep a distance from them. As we grow older, we could not help it, but to stay away from them. We would sometimes even blame them when things go wrong.

                Besides that, gender discrimination is also an important issue. Every parent can’t help it but to give more attention to the sons even in modern times like this. Parents always think that the son will be the one carrying the family name and thus, they are more important than daughters.  Even after equality is given to everyone, traditions remains intact and influence much of our lives. Moreover, gender discrimination also happens at work place. Some people things that men are more capable than woman physically and emotionally. They say that men are wiser and not so emotionally affected compared to women when it comes to decision making. Women will always bring in other issue that does not relate to the topic and make the wrong moves. As a result, some people prefer important people such as professionals and political leaders to be men. It is undeniable that most of the people will also doubt the capability of our prime minister if the post were to be hold by a woman. 

                Not only that, we also judge a person on their appearance. For example, we categorize people as fat, skinny, thin, tall and etc. We always say that “don’t judge a book by its cover”, but our brain just automatically evaluates a person the first four second we see them. Once categorized, our brain will take another few more times to remove the first impression that were made on them. So When we see a individual which is very different from what we call “normal”, will be labelled as “weird”, especially when we see people with bad fashion taste.

                In a nutshell, discrimination had brought nothing but harm to the society and long term physical and mental harm to those who are discriminated. We should learn the esson and avoid discrimination from taking place to prevent the history from repeating itself again.