Discrimation - An Outsider's Perspective

[Hunter]

This is probably the wrong forum (and if so, please move it to the correct one).   I wrote this on another forum a few months ago and wish to re-share it.



For some people, their first encounter with discrimination is a shock . . . but for others, such as myself, it's simply the way things have always been.

As for me, I was born into a poor white family. I never saw discrimination practiced by my parents, though my grandfather (a WWII veteran for context) used the "n" word in a derogatory fashion a few times. Before the second grade, my parents moved about once a year but I don't have any real memories of that time. We moved in the blizzard of 1978, into a house my parents had built on two acres of land my grandfather had given them.

My most vivid memory from that time was walking into the second grade class and hearing the other student whine: "But you promised us a girl." And after that point, I have no memories of ever having real friends: only people who either picked on me, ignored me, or (on a few occasions) thought to hit me. I had to get up at 5:30 am each morning, not because of chores, but because the bus came around 6 am at the beginning of a two hour bus route. I had given up on after school activities by the time I hit high school, except for choir and drama club. I was smart, but perhaps because of my circumstances, unwilling to excel academically. Perhaps because it would simply be one more form of discrimination that I would face. I had given up on athletics too, I had a mother who worked around twelve hours a day with around an hour and a half commute and a chronically ill father born with a defective heart and having had two brain surgeries by that point.

We stayed in that school system . . . one where I was constantly bullied or just ignored . . . until somewhere in the eleventh grade, when my parents were forced by economic circumstances to move yet again. The only real light for me during that time was being a part of the Boy Scouts, the troop for which met in the county capital, and the only real city. This was probably the only really positive treatment that I had my entire childhood by people that weren't blood family. The real achievement of my life took place just a week short of my eighteenth birthday, having earned the Eagle Scout award.

I had attempted military service at the age of eighteen but ended up being unsuitable for that. The reason given today would be along the lines of "failure to adapt", hardly a surprise given my childhood. During my first attempt at college, I ended up as part of a Christian group who would prove to be about the only real friends that would have until I reached around thirty five. During that time, I had a wide variety of friends and acquaintances of all nationalities, circumstances, and of both genders. I was much more a serious Christian during that time, thinking that the religion a person practiced really mattered, something which mellowed and eventually faded away as I got older.

As I got older, the time on job decreased and the number of jobs per year increased. Because I never finished college, I ended up relying on my parents for a place to live, having to spend just about all my meager wages on student loan repayments and having a car to get to work. I can remember making just above 15k and thinking I'd done well.

Aside from my parents, I was increasingly alone. I never had an actual partner, never really had a romantic relationship with a woman, was never really close to anyone who wasn't family. The closest thing I had to a relationship was a habitual drug user who swore she was quitting (and in her defense even tried for a while), which eventually resulting in the two of us splitting up under what I thought was friendly circumstances.

By the time I was thirty-five, I'd figured out that my isolation wasn't just caused by nurture (though admittedly there was plenty of that in the mix but was also the result of nature, something I'd suspected since middle school. I'd eventually become diagnosed as both a Bipolar Depressive but also with Asperger's Syndrome, the latter being a form of Autism. It wasn't until the winter of 2016/2017 that I encountered discrimination because of my skin color, which proved to be simply one more check box in a life filled with bad experiences and bigotry.

I've always been an Outsider: on the outside of society looking in. I find any form of discrimination to be both sad and, while the frequent recipient of, never actually felt myself toward another. As one person I once knew pointedly put it: "It's all just wrapping paper".


It makes me ask: Are people really so frail that they need some form of artificial distinction to make themselves feel better? That they say to themselves that they are better than someone else because of race, gender, religion, or age? If so, then that's truly even sadder than the torturous journey of my life.

[MasterMischief]

I do not think discrimination comes from feeling superior.  I think it is more of a shorthand of identifying friend or foe.  The unknown is dangerous.  We are social creatures, but also guarded against things we do not understand because it can be a threat.  Seeing danger where there is none is less risky than not seeing it when it is there.  I am speaking from a primal survival perspective here.  In today's society, this is all just heavy baggage weighing us down.  Diversity is a strength.  Every new perspective a useful tool in solving old problems.

[Inkidu]

I do not think discrimination comes from feeling superior.  I think it is more of a shorthand of identifying friend or foe.  The unknown is dangerous.  We are social creatures, but also guarded against things we do not understand because it can be a threat.  Seeing danger where there is none is less risky than not seeing it when it is there.  I am speaking from a primal survival perspective here.  In today's society, this is all just heavy baggage weighing us down.  Diversity is a strength.  Every new perspective a useful tool in solving old problems.

No, as someone who faced a lot of bullying throughout school for a mild physical condition, I can tell you it's superiority more often than not among kids. They see different and they want to hurt different, out different, remove different.

[MasterMischief]

A desire to hurt/remove could come from fear.

Please understand that I, in no way, am trying to lessen or discredit your experiences.  I believe you were bullied and I am deeply sorry you had to endure that.  I am only question what the motives behind it were.  It is also not a justification.

[Inkidu]

A desire to hurt/remove could come from fear.

Please understand that I, in no way, am trying to lessen or discredit your experiences.  I believe you were bullied and I am deeply sorry you had to endure that.  I am only question what the motives behind it were.  It is also not a justification.

On a broader sense yeah fear, but mostly it's a desire to imitate that humans are so prone to doing. If you can break those kids off from the group and engage them one by one they (and most people) are generally reasonable and hopefully see the error of their ways. It's literally just groupthink.