There are rules and laws in countries around the world to help prevent discrimination. In the USA, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, colour, religion, sex or national origin. However, this doesn’t mean that discrimination doesn’t exist anymore. It does. So along with the legal methods of stopping discrimination from happening, there are also things that each one of us can do as individuals.
Often, people discriminate against others as a result of deeply ingrained personal prejudices, encouraging them to put others down in order to establish a hierarchy where they are considered “superior”. This can also be attributed to insecurities the offending people may have. For example, they might have experienced some sort of failure recently. This can cause them to feel inadequate, and which might have fuelled acts of discrimination by the person to make themselves feel better.
When we experience discrimination, I think that the first thing we can do is focus on our own strengths. When somebody is putting you down, often your self-confidence could start to break apart. It depends on us on how we allow ourselves to feel. But if we can focus on our achievements and the good parts about us, it can sometimes help to neutralise the negative thoughts we might have due to discrimination. In many cases, I believe that it is often very helpful to share this thought with a close person - could be parents or a best friend. These people can also provide us with the reassurance that one might need to cope with the emotional impacts of discrimination. They can be encouraging and help you focus on your strengths.
Most of us already know that allowing others to control how we feel is one of the worst things that we can do to ourselves. Will Smith once said, “Stop letting people who do so little for you control so much of your mind, feelings, and emotions.” All we need is to know within ourselves about how good and capable we are, rather than letting others define us. If there is/are people who keep reinforcing negative things about you, I think it can mean that they aren’t someone who will be out there cheering amongst the crowd when you succeed. It could be best to distance yourself from these people, not sparing any thought to them, and instead spending more time with those who bring out the best in you.
This can help offset the negative thoughts that a person might feel from being on the receiving end of hateful comments and allow them to establish a strong sense of self.
However, it’s worth noting that you should not simply allow hate to be spread to yourself or others without taking some form of action against it. Another important thing, in my opinion, is that whether you are the one being discriminated against, or not, one should surely try and intervene safely when such a thing occurs. Dorothy J. Edwards, president and founder of Alteristic, a nonprofit consultancy that provides bystander training, focuses on “the three D’s”: direct, distract and delegate.
Direct doesn’t necessarily mean being combative. “It can just involve directly addressing the situation,” says Dr Edwards. It needs to assert to the perpetrator that what they are doing is not right, helping stop any abuse. Distract involves changing the topic, so the one being offended can recover, and the situation can go back to normal. Personally, I wouldn’t put this method on the top of my list because I believe that it just delays the conflict, and it is likely to resurface again in the future. So, it’s better to deal with it on the spot. Finally, delegate is referring to getting someone along with you and taking their help to stand up against the act. It could just be a friend. The physical presence of people, showing support for the one being attacked gives a very strong message to the attacker. This can help stop the offender from doing something even more harmful.
Along with that, addressing the issue of inequalities and rising levels of discrimination through educating about how everybody deserves to be treated with an equal level of respect and dignity may also prove to be very helpful. All of us in this world need to understand how discrimination is an immoral and unethical act. It creates social divisions that no country or the world can benefit from. The more people understand the negative impacts of discrimination, the better. I would say the group of people we should address this message to would be the younger generation. People are most easily influenced when they are young and their values are not yet fully defined. By changing their mindsets to one that sees everyone as equal, we ensure that future generations continue with this same principle, whereas by addressing adults we might not necessarily stop the problem from occurring further on down the road. In the future, we might be able to live in a more unified society. All discrimination is doing is stopping people from being their best. Individuals and groups of people are put down. They are not provided with equal opportunities which could allow them to thrive. Each of us deserve to be allowed to use our skills and talent and become successful.
Just because someone has different physical traits, it does not make them less or more capable. It does not define their personalities or who they are. At the end of the day, we are all human beings.
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