Henslin defines discrimination as “an action.” This action is “unfair treatment directed against someone.” Henslin goes on to further describe different reasons for this action. These can range anywhere from age to skin color, to gender, to personal preferences in style, even to religious and political views. There are even actual terms for the certain categories of discrimination: racism, sexism, ageism, etc. Prejudice is charged as the driving force behind discrimination. Defined on page 231 (along with discrimination), prejudice is “the prejudging” (go figure) of a person, “usually in a negative way.” I say go figure because if you break down the word prejudice, “pre” is the prefix that denotes “beforehand,” and the root of the verb “to judge” is clearly in the word.
Prejudice has been noticeable in American society for at least the last couple of centuries. The Civil War was fought over slavery, essentially. Who were these slaves at the time? African men, women, and children, who had been brought over to the United States for the simple reason of serving the white man, having already been “prejudged” as inferior. This had already been going on since around the time of the official founding of America in 1776. Some of our founding fathers were well-known slave owners, such as Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. (Ambrose, para. 1)
After the Emancipation Proclamation ended the Civil War, African-Americans (the now cultural term for the descendants of that original group) began making their way towards political and social equality. Any white person who grew up in that generation, however, had already been indoctrinated with the idea that any person who wasn’t a white American meant nothing. This is known as ethnocentricity. Ethnocentricity is a concept that states that a group of people will usually rate themselves over all other groups of people. This can go to such trivial lengths as sports teams or high schools.
White people did everything in their power (which they had all of) to suppress African-Americans. Several groups sprang up in response to this social uprising, the most well-known of which is the KKK. I remember watching a documentary about them at my friend Joe’s house a couple of months ago. Surprisingly, they originally based themselves as a Christian organisation. I used to be Catholic, so I can safely say the KKK isn’t exactly something I’d call a “Christ-like” organisation, but I digress. They believed the white man was the perfect being in the eyes of God. Anything else could be tossed by the wayside. This goes right back to ethnocentricity.
I guess the point I’m trying to make is that ethnocentricity is pretty much one of the leading causes of prejudice. As stated earlier, ethnocentricity is the belief that your group (or the one you follow, in the case of a sports team/athlete) is the best out of all similar groups. This can manifest itself in many ways, either in being blatantly forceful about it, as American society is, or being rather reserved (slightly xenophobic), like Japan. America wants to force the idea that it is greater than everyone on every other country, while Japan wants to keep itself a great country by not allowing itself to be infected with other, possibly harmful, cultures. I agree with the latter. I’d rather protect myself against anything potentially harmful instead of forcing myself on others to make them like me.
I don’t really have any problems with being discriminative in society, other than the fact that I’m just flat-out disgusted with American society. I realize how little sense that makes, that I’m discriminative against my own society, but I’m coming to realisations about this country that I do not like. To be honest, there’s really not much I can do to change that. My morals and ideals do not mesh with the general consensus I am getting off of our society. For example, we live in a very consumer-driven and materialistic society. I live a much more meager lifestyle than most of the higher-end people in America. Material possessions don’t interest me much. I’m content with what I have, while most humans still always want more.
On a side note, however, I have recently been on the receiving end of much religious discrimination. The funniest part of it is that I don’t belong to any religion. I am an atheist. Atheism gets its name from the Greek atheos, which translates to “without god.” I grew up in a Roman Catholic family, but over the last couple of years, I’ve grown out of the Church. I officially left in the Spring of 2010. I bounced around between several different ideal systems before finally deciding on atheism.
I think one of the funniest examples of discrimination happened at the store I work at. It was during this past Christmas season, and I was talking with a couple of customers about Christmas. Somehow (I don’t remember how), the fact that I was an atheist came up. I’m going to guess this couple was very devoutly Christian, because the woman told me that since I was atheist, I shouldn’t be able to celebrate Christmas. I was floored. I argued that I don’t celebrate the religious aspect of Christmas, but I do recognise the fact that Christmas is also a time to be with my family, which I intended to whether people liked it or not.
Oddly enough, however, the most severe discrimination was actually by my own family. Like I said earlier, I grew up in a Roman Catholic family, and both of my parents are still hardcore Catholic. When I told them I didn’t want to go to church anymore, it hit them pretty hard. When I told them I didn’t believe in God anymore, my mom about lost it. It hurt them very much, and I was hurt that they were hurt. I’m a grown man now. I turn 21 two weeks after the due date of this paper. My dad is starting to recognise this, and is becoming more accepting of it. My mom still isn’t happy about it. My grandmother wasn’t happy about it either. I never got her to fully accept that I had turned atheist, and unfortunately, I’ll now never have the chance, as she passed away on January 7th. If anything, that almost makes it more painful. Being I’m an atheist, I obviously don’t believe in a heaven or hell, so she can’t hear me if I tried praying to her, and I won’t see her in an afterlife when I die, so all of that trying to communicate has become lost, and I hate it. I mean, I know she loved me regardless, but I miss her.
Discrimination has become a severe problem in all cultures, there’s no denying that. Humans are inherently discriminatory against someone who isn’t like them, so there’s really no chance of eradicating it unless we somehow work out every single possible difference amongst societies, which is not likely to happen. As much as I’d like to do something about discrimination, my words and ideas alone would make scarce more than a scratch (if that) on the wall that is segregation. If the world thought as one, we’d have a wrecking ball of sufficient size, but until then, all we can do is throw notes over the wall and try to communicate.
Works Cited
Ø Henslin, James M. Essentials of Sociology: A Down-to-Earth Approach (8th Edition).
Ø Ambrose, Stephen E. "Flawed Founders." Academic Search Premier. EBSCOhost, Nov. 2002. Web. 25 Jan. 2011.
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