Discrimination

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LOL..

Nice to see you again, Ben.

Now...this is off topic.

I have a better idea with this topic, how about we ask the discriminators themselves or those who use to discriminate.

I'll go first, I used to discriminate against this kid who had trouble reading aloud because I was ignorant...ignorant for reasons I don't know except that it made me feel better about my problems. Little did I know he had dislexia as I mistook him for being ret*d which is another discrimination in itself.

Anyway, I didn't know all the struggles he had been going through to try and overcome this problem. I got to be his tutor and got to know him better day by day. I had no idea until he told me how painful it was to him when people laughed at him whenever the teacher would call him up to read something aloud off a book or whatever. Even I had no idea that it was that hurtful to him.

So, sometimes we take advantage of people's weaknesses without realizing the effects it has on them. But that's one example as I don't relate well with ill-intentioned people like bullies who are out to purposely hurt others.

My other experience was when I was with some fair weathered friends as I felt alone and had no real friends and these people accepted me into their *clique* or whatever. I felt more protected than being alone as though I were a target. Even I had joined in some of the crap they pulled on people. As odd as this sounds since I would never be this way with anyone, we were calling this guy a discrimanatory name for a homosexual like fa***t b/c he talked funny and acted effeminate. I guess I sort of wanted to belong and was afraid my peers would reject me as I already felt rejected many times by peers before. It eventually escalated to violence after he retorted back as though he had started the fight. Luckily we had an adult stop the fighting but nevertheless, they still kept going with the name calling and crap.

That's the only event that happened to me in terms of trying to fit in and doing whatever it took just to feel accepted. Now maybe not all my peers were trying to fit in but really were out to hurt this individual because of their blind ignorance.

On the whole, discrimination is everywhere. Sometimes we don't realize on a subconcsious level that we are putting someone down based soley on their gender, race, sexual orientation, religion, and so on. In the society we are raised in can play a huge role in discrimination since racism was prevalent back then and those who used the n word might not be racist but unaware about the discriminatory effects of that word. Today, it's become almost unacceptable with just a few acceptions.

I hear many words that are discrimating even words that are not meant to put people of a particular stereotype down but to use what they are against other people like "You play like a girl." I always cringe at that because it makes it sound like being a girl is unlucky or that girls can't play sports. Other words like fa***t, ret*d, schizo, b***h, cracker, and/or other words and phrases based upon a group of people are good examples. So even the most obvious can be discrimanating when it's used to belittle someone.

Whoops I guess I got wordy on this topic...

Hmmm...Very nice post MissConstrue, and inspiring. I will go next.

As an adult, I tend to discriminate against Spanish speaking cultures. This is purely becuase I am mistaken as Spanish speaking on a daily basis. I am not proud to admit it, but I find this offensive. The root cause of my offense is based from my childhood.

I am dark complected (teeny bit American Indian) and grew up in a very small, white, racist town. I experienced discrimination throughout my entire youth, because in my town; if you were not white then you must be black. This caused me to develop a bit of empathy toward blacks, even though I never really knew any.

As an adult, I am not mistaken as black but even Spanish speaking people assume I am one of them. Because of the fact I have never been able to identify with any race in particular, I somehow take great offense to this assumption. I know it is an honest mistake for them to make but I am not one of them...I am one of me. *Everyone* seems to need to lump me into the Spanish speaking culture, therefore I tend to have discriminatory thoughts and speech toward them to counteract this.

A bit off...but the truth none-the-less.

philosopherBoi i'll explain it to you.

Humans are pack animals like dogs. In order to keep the pack strong you must have the strongest in your pack and keep the out the weakest and members that don't conform to the pack for best chance of packs surival. Discrimination is instinctial behaviour that sidelines the weakest and those that do not conform to the packt. As a human if you put yourself above someone else through discrimination and if associate yourself with higher status members of the pack it lifts your own status in the pack.

That is why people discriminate, they are putting themselve above lower status people and trying to associate themselves with higher status people.

That is also why people worship movie stars and successful people they want to associate themselves with higher status people, if they do they will increase their own social status.

If you think evolutionary competition you will understand a lot of human behaviour.

I'm with MR Bogan on this one. We are instinctively, animals.

Are you involved in genetic modification?

Just checking.

diachronic linguistics sounds like a cover for weird a half man half tyrannosaur experiments.

I'd like to see the results.