Understanding the Other Side of Discrimination

America is different; it’s constantly transforming and every day race, gender, and age discrimination is gradually diminishing. This is known, and for this we are proud. Upon hearing any form of discrimination we frown and shake our heads in disappointment; we know it’s wrong, we know we should accept all people in all their forms as they are. But not everyone knows this, and we know they don’t, and yells erupt from our souls as we voice our anger at such abysmal things. And as angry as we may be, outside of our realm of acceptance, there exists hoards of people who still grasp on their discriminatory judgements everyday, and have no issue voicing them. But, my curiosity has driven me to view them in a different way than shaking my head at them. In no way do I think it’s okay, but maybe the reason behind their ruthless discriminatory manners isn’t entirely their fault. Perhaps its a mere product of their consequences, a mere trait derived from their surroundings, a corruption of the mind resulting from the society that they live in. People who acquire these strong negative perceptions generally live in communities where these thoughts are shared, accepted, and even enforced.

Whenever I go home to Jordan for the summer I attempt to lock myself away from most of the people there. I resent sitting around the groups of women and hearing their cruel attacks on not even other races, but people from other communities who shared the same nationality as themselves. I found it deeply perturbing, I shunned them and kept to myself to block them out knowing any attempt of telling them they’re wrong will merely cause troubles within my family. My father used to always tell me, “It’s not their fault, they were raised in a society where this is a normality. They were raised to be racist and judgmental. They were raised to treat women badly just because they’re women. They were raised to abuse their children for any simple wrongdoing or merely to lash out their frustrations”. But that isn’t okay; they should know it isn’t okay, how could they possible condone such things and still call themselves god-fearing individuals when their actions and words are plainly sacrilegious.

But what if my Dad is onto something. I once read an ethnography by Philippe Bourgois called “In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio” and it was all about acts of agency under the circumstances people are forced under. People take on certain vices because in their community its a normality; people speak a certain way thats adjusted to “fit in” to their surroundings. And isn’t that just what the minds these women in Jordan are? Products of their circumstances. Maybe if they didn’t share these views, conflict would erupt. We all know civil rights movements are no walk in the park; voicing things that go against the natural current in society isn’t remotely simple, even if it is, technically, right. It has to be done to open the minds of individuals, but just because it was done in America, doesn’t mean it was done everywhere else. Judgements based on race, age, and gender more than just exist everywhere, they are part of the natural current. They are accepted as a normality, and can we really blame them for this? They aren’t the ones who created these normalities, they were merely born and molded into them. Humans are capable of plasticity, but only to a certain point, and many of these humans don’t see anything wrong with the way they talk about others, they don’t see it as racism or discrimination, it’s just every day conversation to them.

And that is what I’ve learned, is the sad truth about the other side of discrimination.