When you hear the word "Discrimination" you naturally think of racial or sexual discrimination. But, unfortunately, discrimination has many sutle forms. Whether we know it or not we discriminate against someone, somehow everyday. We may not vocalize it or make it apparent but it is there. It is in our thoughts and actions.
When we were first created or born, we were pure and innocent. We accepted everyone and everything for what it was. We were amazed at the smallest detail and at the largest expanse of night sky. As we grew older we were influenced by our parents who were products of the past and the accepted norms of that time. We were also influenced by our playmates, classmates, employers, friends and the society in which we grew up. We were also influenced by our own fears and misunderstandings.
We discounted certain people, places, foods, etc because our parents influenced us against them and our parents in our child's mind, were infallible. We held to these beliefs because they provided us with a sense of comfort and belonging. Even after we became adults it was difficult to shed these beliefs because they were so much a part of who we were. If we had an open mind, receptive to change, eventually our views changed along with the times and we discovered that the beliefs of the past were just that, beliefs of the past. Not necessarily wrong but no longer relevant to the world today.
Unfortunately there will always be those who want to cling to the past no matter how irrelevant or hurtful. They continue to spew the hatred of the past cloaked in new language or in a different light so it is perceived as being different. But it is not, it is discrimination. It is "us versus them" wrapped up in either religion, politics, greed, or fear. We all retain a healthy fear of certain things, certain animals to help us stay alive. That does not make the things we fear bad or wrong. It doesn't mean we need to eliminate these things or people.
Discrimination is based on the fear of what we do not understand. Humanity has overcome its fears in the past and become explorers, inventors, scientists, etc. Once we stop fearing each other, except when it is justified, discrimination will be eliminated. Politicians use fear to get us to vote in their favor and not always for the best. Our creator gave us something no other animal has, the ability to reason. To determine for ourselves the difference between right and wrong; to see the good along with the bad in people; to rationalize and think for ourselves and not be driven by instinct entirely.
Once we as a world begin to use this ability to reason on a more consistent basis, not only will it be a better place but discrimination as we know it will disappear.
