Discrimination Within Discrimination

Matthew Park
Briana Cushing
ENGL - 2030 - 10
November 28, 2012

Discrimination Within Discrimination

What defines us as humans? What element separates us humans from other living organisms? Is it the ability to walk upright that deems us unique compared to other living organisms? Or is it the ability to grab and use objects with our opposable thumbs that deem us unique? Maybe it is the ability to communicate with others? Although there are many factors that allows us human beings to be unique compared to other living organisms, the power of love and the level that humans express love is what allows us to differentiate ourselves completely from other living organisms like animals. In an ideal world, we would imagine a world with an abundance of love for one another. Our world however, is the exact opposite. A species that can express love unlike any other species of living organisms, unfortunately, can also express hate unlike any other species of living organisms. This hate that has rooted so deep within our society grows from one very powerful element embedded within our human nature: our tendency to discriminate. Unfortunately, the roots of discrimination which are seeded by hate are so deep within our society that most of us fail to realize that discrimination is everywhere. You would assume that discrimination exists through broad spectrums: discrimination of race, religion, gender, and different beliefs. However, even within these spectrums, hate has infected our society so deep within that discrimination exists even within united groups. This infection level of hate-induced discrimination causes our world to act as a prison, only the bars are missing. On the surface, discrimination exists within four very broad spectrums: discrimination of race, religion, gender, and discrimination of different beliefs. Underneath these categories, discrimination infects and thrives within them, and are all connected to each other. It is hate and or the lack of love that causes discrimination to exist. In our modern world, it is not “us versus them”, “christianity vs catholicism”, “girls versus boys”, etc. Although it seems to be “us versus them”, people of the modern world has separated themselves from others to the point where it is “me versus all”: “my religion versus your religion”, “my beliefs versus yours”. This constant separation is the core reason as to why discrimination exists through hate. An example of how deep hate has rooted within our society to cause this discrimination through our own separation from others is within gender. The most discussed gender discrimination is between, well the only two genders: women against men. Many men tend to believe that “women have NOT made that many contributions” towards society not because they haven’t, but only because men's “egos are so fragile that we believe that by giving women the credit they deserve, we are also admitting their equal footing in this country” (Ferroni). This unreasonable belief that demoting mens’ status down to women being unbearable demonstrates the discrimination between the two genders. But what of the same genders? What could cause discrimination within the same gender? Out of the many factors, one factor that is most discussed in the modern world is the discrimination of one’s sexuality. Recently, a petition collected “300,000 signatures asking the organization” - the Boy Scouts - “to end its ban on gay Scouts and gay Scout leaders.” (Graddick). This demonstrates how sexuality is a factor that can separate people and cause them to discriminate even against their own genders. Whether it is the same gender or a different gender, it is evident that discrimination exists within genders as a whole, demonstrating how deep hate has seeded itself within modern society. Another example where discrimination exists in a broad spectrum is discrimination of others beliefs and religions. In the modern day, with many different religions around the world, conflict seems to come up more and more because of religious discrimination. Bombings occurring in the middle east because of religious discrimination has become something that occurs on almost a daily basis. Earlier this year, a bomb in Pakistan “went off outside the shrine of a Sunni Muslim saint... killing four people” (Washington Post). Hate has rooted so deep within society that what you believe in can be responded with death from other people. Bombs are going off outside religious sanctuaries due to other religions being unable to stand what other people believe. Wars are being fought and have been fought due to religious differences, killing many people for what they believed to be true. Although there is a definite difference between faith and logic, faith is something that all humans have a right to the moment they are born. However, because people believe that everyone else should believe what they believe to be true, these clashes between beliefs cause people to hate others, resulting in these mass bombings and wars over religion. Another broad spectrum in which discrimination exists is the discrimination of different races. This is probably the most unfortunate discrimination that exists in the world. People are discriminated for their culture, how they look and sadly, who they are. Racism is a type of discrimination that hates and separates from people just for being who they are. No one has a choice to be born a certain race, yet racism targets people for acting and looking different. Unfortunately, mankinds history demonstrates racism throughout. One great massacre of a race that occurred during man's history is the infamously known Holocaust. During the Holocaust, many races were targeted and mercilessly slaughtered during World War II, killing many innocent people for being themselves. Many different races and groups such as the Jews and “Gypsies were subjected to racial discrimination from the early days of Nazi rule” (Washington Post), who were later massacred by the masses. Because of the belief that such races and groups were so inferior, a man with power, Adolf Hitler, made it one of his priorities to wipe out such races and groups, not for anything they did or may plan to do, but simply for being. Discrimination of these broad spectrums - race, gender, religion and beliefs - are but only the surface of where discrimination exists within the world. This separation and discrimination of others, you may assume may bring ourselves closer to those with the same types of discriminations. We see this uniting of discriminations occurring everywhere in the world. During wars, countries “become” more united within themselves, as they are waging war with different countries, which separates themselves from the country they are waging war with. But even within that country, does discrimination exist even with this “uniting” occurring? Even within a country, the different types of discrimination is quite astounding. Within a country, there is even more separation, even when putting aside the broader spectrums in which discrimination exists. Within a country, there is discrimination within united groups. For example, within a government such as the US, because there are two different views: democracy versus a republic, this causes many types of discrimination of politics. Take even a school for example. Students separate themselves from others in vast amount of ways. Students categorize themselves in ways such as the broad spectrums, but also other ways. Popular students will discriminate against ones that may not be so popular, geeks will discriminate against jocks, athletic students versus students without athletic hobbies. In a recent article, this discrimination is assessed as “a rivalry that has stood the test of time, tortured many a high school souls and become an iconic battle in the U.S. culture: jocks vs. geeks” (Forer). Although this may not be the case everywhere, this type of discrimination exists everywhere within the world. “Geeks” are typically associated with “positive attributes such as intelligence and an expertise in technology” and academics, while the word “jock” is typically associated with being popular and good looking, but not so bright. Because of these differences, students will discriminate others for how they act and behave.
The unfortunate fact about this is that discrimination will exist even within these more specific spectrums. Lets focus on just one group and see what kind of discrimination can be found within just one of the two groups. In a school, like mentioned before, there may be discrimination of students who are athletic versus students who may not be as athletic or have non athletic hobbies such as band. Although discrimination exists between these two different categories, even within one we can see how much discrimination exists. In athletics, discrimination against other sports exist just because of the sport itself. Some people find some sports extremely pointless to play while others find it very exciting. Although the discrimination that exists between different sports can be assessed, we can see that even within just one sport, the amount of discrimination that exists is astounding. Even within one sport, there are different teams, opening a door for discrimination against the other team just because they are the opponent. However, it is unfortunate that discrimination exists even within the same united team. It is easy to assume that a team acts as a team and is united so that discrimination cannot exist within that united group. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Within a team, there is a diversity of who plays for the team, players with the broader spectrums that were earlier assessed: different religions, races, and gender. In a recent CNN sports article, a fight that occurred during an English Football game is reported. A fight is started after a match of the English versus the Balkan, only to end with fighting and racial remarks. After this fight occurred, the football organization and lawmakers tried “grappling as to how best to tackle discrimination” (McGowan) within the sport. A veteran football player argued that “If we are going to fight racism, we can only do it by being united”(McGowan). It is interesting that he argued that being “united” would stop racism, when racism exists even within a united group such as an athletic team. This is just a demonstration of discrimination of races within a united group. The other broader spectrums such as religion still exist within group which also causes discrimination.
It is evident that discrimination seems to work its way deep into any society, starting from the more broader spectrums of even down to united groups. The discrimination starts with broad spectrums, narrows down to categories like athletic teams, and repeats to broader spectrums like the example of football. So where does all this discrimination come from? Where is the source of the hate that causes discrimination to exist? Unfortunately, ourselves. In Ferroni’s article “We Teach Racism, Sexism and Discrimination in Schools”, he claims that has “never seen a child not play with another child because of race, religion, or sexuality... until a parent comes over and tells the child not to play with him or her”. Although this is just one possibility as to where the hate starts, it is this type of behavior that opens doors for discrimination to weave itself through deep into our society. In this example, any child will listen to elder authority because of their learning state. When this discrimination is repeatedly taught to the child, the child adopts that discrimination and hold onto that discrimination. School authority unfortunately also promotes discrimination unintentionally. It seems that even the way you learn seems to be discriminated. Because not everyone learns at the same pace, some students tend to learn faster or slower than others. Especially for students with disabilities, it is extremely difficult for them to learn some things of the curriculum. However, there are “some previous studies that children with disabilities are admitted but then counseled out” of schools due to their learning impairment. This type of environment that discriminates even with learning disabilities sets an ambience in which hate can grow, causing discrimination of others.
It is unfortunate that discrimination has found its way so deep into our society. What is even more unfortunate is the fact that the tendency to have hate is but part of our human nature, and our struggle “to eliminate discrimination ...have been prominent in many countries over the past” (Donnelly) and is something we cannot eliminate from our society. Although some parts of the world have learned to become more open minded, some parts of the world flourish with discrimination and continues to grow. Emotion, powering human life, causes discrimination from hate. The only solution to completely eliminate discrimination would be to eliminate emotion. What then, would be the point of life? Life without emotion, life without “the ability to feel” (Wimmer) would be pointless and life would not be enjoyable. Life would become something out of the movie Equilibrium, where emotion is absent in society, providing a utopian society without war, without hate, without sorrow. Although this would seem like a dream, because all emotions were stripped from the people, life in fact seemed miserable due to the fact that any emotion evoking artifact was destroyed to prevent emotion. Unless emotion was completely stripped from us, there is no true solution in eliminating discrimination completely from a society. Because human emotions exists, hate exists as well, in which discrimination can grow. Emotion however, is what differentiates humans from all other living organisms. Our level at which we can express emotion is powerful compared to other living organisms. It is our level of expression of emotion that wills us to live life, but it is also this level of expression that causes pain to others through the most dreaded emotion of all, hate.