Discrimination- Ignorance- Shame

Discrimination is deep routed in most of us. It is sad that living in today’s world we still find many ways to discriminate and there are many conflicts around the world that have their seeds in religion or race. Why is it that we are unable to see another human being as a human being first and everything else later? Over the last ten years of my life I have come across the most subtle and the most open ways in which people discriminate. I have seen that people have misconceptions and they follow generalizations really quickly when it comes to somebody from a different culture. At the receiving end it is a hurtful and a very aggravating experience, one that people like me have grown to ignore and just move on simply because you can’t really fight every one and you can’t really explain to everyone that I’m not from China (which is so ridiculous that I always say yes to this question). Even when you stare out of curiosity more than anything in most cases, you are still putting out some hurt because your gaze does not hold a smile with it.

I’ve met people across the country who doesn’t know anything about other parts of the country. People who put up flags of the nation when a game is on, on Independence Day and so on so forth have no idea how many states this nation has; they have no idea about the capitals of the states, some people don’t even know enough of their own home city or state. Ask me anytime, I’ll be quick to name them, it’s not because I have a great memory but because I care, I love my country and I can back that up with things I know about it.

 If we see one person at fault, or a few at fault, if we have had a bad experience with one person or with a few people of a particular culture, we find it very easy to assume that everyone will be that way. Even those without any experience with a person from a different culture have misconceptions based on these generalizations. It is ignorance that makes us discriminate, most of us reading this have lived life in our own little bubbles, and although from the point of view of a cosmologist it is a wonderful notion, as human beings we couldn’t be more mistaken to live that way. I bleed the same blood as anyone else on the planet, I sweat the same sweat and I feel the same pain, so what reason do we have to discriminate?

I don’t even want to touch upon the ignorance of the government because my understanding has always been that if it is a government of the people, the people are to blame for its misgivings. We must first change our own views rather than expect that the government will make a change, if we all change, the government also changes with us as it should. We as human beings need to first realize that we are the same, and we are not better than anyone but we are better with everyone.