Discrimination: Encyclopedia - Discrimination

Discrimination

To discriminate is to make a distinction. There are several meanings of the word, including statistical discrimination, or the actions of a circuit called a `discriminator`. This article addresses the most common colloquial sense of the word, invidious discrimination. That is, to make a distinction between people on the basis of class or category without regard to individual merit. Examples include social, racial, religious, sexual, disability, ethnic and age-related discrimination.

Discrimination - Government sanctioned discrimination

By virtue of establishing nationalism (as opposed to globalism) every government has formalized and supported discrimination.

Examples of discrimination within countries include: apartheid in South Africa; institutionalized racial segregation in the USA from the Civil War through the 1960s; the "Jewish problem" in Nazi Germany; and re-education camps in some communist countries.

Many governments have attempted to control discrimination through civil rights legislation, equal opportunity laws and institutionalised policies of affirmative action (called reverse discrimination by its opponents).

Even in western, secular countries, governments practice discrimination. For example, governments may provide better treatment to citizens than to non-citizens. Unemployed citizens may receive welfare benefits funded by taxpayers, while unemployed non-citizens may be denied such benefits. Governments often have the power to forcefully expel non-citizens but cannot expel citizens. Discrimination based on citizenship status is not generally considered illegal.

Religious intolerance often manifests itself in discriminatory behaviours. During the Middle Ages, in the Crusades, Popes, kings, and emperors tried to draw on Christian unity to defend their lands from some followers of Islam, which was spreading along Europe's southern and eastern borders. Some Roman Catholic countries have historically persecuted dissenters, for example with the Spanish Inquisition. Some rulers of Protestant countries sponsored discrimination against Roman Catholics. During Tudor and Stuart times, rulers of the United Kingdom persecuted both Catholics and non-Catholics at intervals for political reasons.

However, today, Muslims are widely faced job related discrimination in the West, particularly in the United Sates, following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. This is termed "Sophisticated discrimination" where the act of discrimination is performed in a way that it cannot be proven easly. According to the EEOC, since September 11, 2001, it has received more than 800 charge filings nationwide, alleging backlash discrimination by individuals who are or who are perceived to be Muslim, Arabic, Middle Eastern, South Asian or Sikh. The two most common issues alleged are harassment and discharge.

Another out of the ordinary example of discrimination against Muslims is occurring in an extremely large context on very different platform. The European Union leaders are openly declaring that Turkey is unqualified to be a full member of the institution despite meeting all of the requirements because of its "religious and ethnic differences". This has been stated by the leaders of France, Austria, Germany and the Vatican. To some, this is conceived to be a case of a largest religious discrimination against a nation of seventy million by a major international governmental organization.

Currently, Non-Muslims too are discriminated against under remaining few Islamic theocratic states. Jews and Christians have historically had fewer rights than Muslim citizens under Muslim states; non-Muslim monotheists have been consigned to the status of dhimmis in some cases. Marxist states have discriminated against all religions at some time or another. This continues in North Korea, China and Vietnam, and many former Soviet republics.

The Kingdom of Jordan forbids Jews from becoming citizens, although peoples of any other group are allowed to do so (law No. 6, sect. 3, of April 3, 1954; restated in law no. 7, sect. 2, of April 1, 1963). Saudi Arabia forbids non-Muslims from practising their religion in public, and clergy may not enter the country to lead ceremonies of other faiths. Christians asking Muslims to convert to Christianity have been persecuted and arrested; Muslims who have converted to Christianity have been executed as apostates. Fictional tales of Jews committing diabolic crimes are published by the state. The article on discrimination against non-Muslims in Saudi Arabia discusses this subject in more depth.

According to reports from the U.S. Department of State, non-Muslims also suffer discrimination in many non-Arab Muslim nations. Separate articles discuss discrimination against non-Muslims in Afghanistan, Iran, Malaysia, Mauritania, Pakistan and Sudan.

The State of Israel is often accused of discrimination against Palestinians; this topic is discussed in the article on the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Some New religious movements often claim that they are discriminated for their non-conformist beliefs. They claim apostates of these movements are the ones carrying the discrimination.

Some others claim that non-religious people (atheists, agnostics, etc.) are subject to the most widespread religious discrimination. During his 1988 Presidential campaign, George H.W. Bush stated that atheists should not be considered patriots or citizens.

Religious Students may be said to be discriminated in schools both publicly and privately. For example, names of clubs have been changed due to claims by administrative staff that some part of the name or the symbolism it represents may offend other students, parents, or teachers.

Discrimination - Ageism

Ageism is discrimination against a person or group on the grounds of age. Although theoretically the word can refer to the discrimination against any age group, ageism usually comes in one of two forms: discrimination against youth, and discrimination against the elderly.

In many countries, companies more or less openly refuse to hire people above a certain age despite the increasing lifespans and average age of the population. The reasons for this range from vague feelings that younger people are more "dynamic" and create a positive image for the company, to more concrete concerns about regulations granting older employees higher salaries or other benefits without these expenses being fully justified by an older employees' greater experience.

Some underage teenagers consider that they're victims of ageism—prejudice on the grounds of age—and that they should be treated more respectfully by adults and not as second-class citizens. Some complain that social stratification in age groups causes outsiders to incorrectly stereotype and generalize the group, for instance that all adolescents are equally immature, violent or rebellious, listen to rock or rap music and do drugs. Some have organized groups against ageism.

Discrimination - The paradox of discrimination

Many people assume that when there is discrimination, one group of people is given more favorable treatment than others. This is not always the case. It is possible to have cases where it is not at all clear which group is given the more favorable treatment.

• Example: A country is under attack during wartime. The war is so ferocious that 80% of the combatants are killed. A law has been passed to forcefully conscript males between 18-24 years of age into the frontline, but females are forbidden to participate.
• Question: Who is suffering unfair discrimination?

There are four possible answers:

1. Males are suffering unfair discrimination. They are forced to participate in the effort which will result in a high probability of death.
2. Females are suffering unfair discrimination. They are prevented from participation in the war effort to protect their homeland.
3. Both males and females are suffering unfair discrimination.
4. No one suffers unfair discrimination. The ruling was made because of valid intrinsic reasons suiting men and women to different activities. (This is not to assert anything about the relative suitability of men and women for conflict.)

There may however be other examples of a situation some might regard as discriminatory, but in which there was no discrimination because of the decision was based on the intrinsic suitedness of the two groups to the roles being apportioned. An example might be symphony orchestras made up of all-white musicians selected by blind auditions. In a blind audition, the musician plays behind a curtain. The reviewer can't see the player, so there is no possibility of skin or race influencing the choice.

Even here, the situation is complicated by possible indirect or institutionalized discrimination. Suppose black people are just as capable of being musicians but have not had access to training. For example, in 1989, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra was threatened with losing a $1.3m subsidy from the state of Michigan unless it hired a second black musician. It side-stepped the blind audition and hired a black man, who noted nonetheless that he would've preferred to be hired normally. This affirmative action hiring was clearly in the narrowest sense discriminatory, yet a chain of events followed leading to the Detroit Symphony African-American Fellowship Program in which young black musicians join the orchestra in rehearsals and performances. They receive coaching and audition preparation tips from orchestra members. Seven Detroit fellows have won seats in major American orchestras.

The key to the paradox is the subjectively interpreted phrase "more favorable treatment". Different people have different ideas about what constitutes "favorable treatment". To a male who does not want to die, favorable treatment means not being forced to go to the frontline. To a female who wants to defend her homeland, favorable treatment means being allowed to do so.

Different groups of people will have different perceptions of a situation. Four people who witness a car accident will have four different perceptions of what happened and how it happened.

Therefore it is possible to have a situation where two groups of people vehemently oppose each other, both objecting to the same piece of legislation on the grounds that it "gives more favorable treatment" to the other group.

Discrimination - Gender Discrimination

Any action that specifically denies opportunities, privileges, or rewards to a person or a group because of their sex.

Internationally, the United Nations concludes that women are facing a global glass ceiling and that in no society do women enjoy the same opportunities as men. In the most developed country, the USA, the Glass Ceiling Commission states that between 95 and 97 per cent of senior managers in the country's biggest corporations are men (...)The term 'glass ceiling' describes the process by which women are barred from promotion by means of an invisible barrier.

Traditionally, sexual differences have been used to justify male-dominated societies in which women have been given inferior and secondary roles in their working lives. There are differences between men and women, other than the physical, but there is little agreement as to what they are.

Generally, legislation to promote gender equality is complex and varied, with a wide divergence in different countries. In the UK, the principal legislation is found in the Equal Pay Act of 1970, providing for equal pay for comparable work; and the Sex Discrimination Act of 1975, which makes discrimination against women or men (including discrimination on the grounds of marital status) illegal in the working situation.

See also

• Ableism
• Affirmative action
• Ageism
• Anti-semitism
• Apartheid laws
• Autism rights movement
• Black Economic Empowerment
• Blood money laws
• Caste system
• "Caucasophobia"
• Civil rights movement
• Collectivism
• Devşirme system
• Dhimmi laws
• Disablism
• Equal opportunity
• Ghetto
• Health disparities
• Height discrimination
• Heterosexism
• Homophobia
• Human Rights
• Jim Crow laws
• Jizyah tax
• Judenhut
• List of anti-discrimination acts
• Neurodiversity
• Nuremberg laws
• Prejudice
• Price discrimination
• Racism
• Segregation
• Separate but equal doctrine
• Sexism
• Equality
• Statistical discrimination
• Special rights
• White supremacy
• Yellow badge

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Discrimination", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki