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ESSAYYYYY

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Discrimination

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I discriminate.

Many people today equate the word discrimination with a wrongful act. To them, to be "discriminated against" is to be a victim of illegal behavior.

The very word itself conjures up a presumption of guilt. Discrimination has indeed become a dirty word.

For example, a recent column featured disgruntled non-employees complaining that they were discriminated against, and not hired, because of their neck tattoos. That is evidence that we, as a society, don't understand the law. People are surprised to find that the vast majority of discrimination is not only legal, but perfectly acceptable - even expected.

Only a few forms of discrimination are actually illegal. Differential treatment based upon race, color, gender, age, sexual orientation, religion, ethnic or national origin, disability, veteran status, gender identity (recently), or any other protected status that also affects the terms or conditions of employment or education, constitute unlawful discrimination.

Otherwise, absent any exception or contract, it's perfectly legal to hire and fire anyone for any reason - even a bad reason.

The reality is: we discriminate all day, every day. We discriminate when we don't hire the guy who showed up to the firm interview in the Led Zeppelin t-shirt. We discriminate based upon looks when we choose a mate. (Some discriminate less than others, especially when they drink.)

Is a guy walking down a dark street toward you with a bloody machete? You're not going waste a lot of time thinking about his socioeconomic background or the racial makeup of his mother-in-law. You're going to discriminate and cross to the other side of the street.

Discrimination is part of how we survive and how we make good decisions in life and business.

Unfortunately, by turning "discrimination" into a profane word, we've confused an entire generation, who now think that because they were canned for showing up drunk to work at the bank in flip-flops and cargo shorts, they've somehow been legally wronged.

We should stop being afraid of a word and be honest about the fact that we all discriminate. For example, here is one group I actively discriminate against and you should too - after all, it's perfectly legal:

Only Children: Why single out people who already have no siblings? I don't trust them. They are too confident, happy, and the product of institutionalized selfishness. As one of my mom's litter of 11 (or so) children, Christmastime was more like when UNICEF backs up a flatbed truck into an impoverished nation and tosses sacks of rice into a crowd. In my case, that crowd was an angry mob of siblings. I couldn't imagine the joy of an Only Child: coming down the steps on Christmas morn and knowing the entire panorama of presents was all yours! Only-Children have never had to share. They have never had to compete for the remote control, or for the last slice of pizza. Only-Children have never known a life of noogies, or wedgies, or wet-willies. Their parents talked to them like a "person," and not like "inventory". Because Only-Children are raised to believe they are unique and destined for greatness, they often go on to become captains of industry. In the meantime, those of us with siblings end up with such low self-esteem, we're lucky if we string together enough days of sobriety to graduate middle school. If you're going to be bigoted, Only-Children are a safe bet. They are too busy on their yachts to care, anyway.

Ultimately, discrimination based on race or other protected classes is not only illegal, it's illogical and bad business. Fortunately, that kind of unlawful discrimination is the true minority. The infinite other kinds are an integral part of life. Let's raise our understanding of the word, and stop discrimination against, well, "discrimination."

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Arguing for some types of discrimination

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I discriminate. Many people today equate the word discrimination with a wrongful act. To them, to be "discriminated against" is to be a victim of illegal behavior. The very word itself conjures up a presumption of guilt. Discrimination has indeed become a dirty word.

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Their isn't a ''gender box.'' we're all human ...

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Career plan

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The Sociology of Discrimination: Racial Discrimination in Employment, Housing, Credit, and Consumer Markets

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Persistent racial inequality in employment, housing, and a wide range of other social domains has renewed interest in the possible role of discrimination. And yet, unlike in the pre-civil rights era, when racial prejudice and discrimination were ...

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Prejudice and Discrimination in Psychology | Simply Psychology

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Social norms - behavior considered appropriate within a social group - are one possible influence on prejudice and discrimination. People may have prejudiced beliefs and feelings and act in a prejudiced way because they are conforming to what is regarded as normal in the social groups to which they belong:

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''Stop playing the ''Race Card''

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And yet, I would like to assume that the motive is noble even if something about it feels a shade off. Wanting to do something - even this - has to have a greater moral currency than resigning oneself to doing nothing.

So, in that spirit, let me start this portion of the conversation with this: Let's all agree to strike the phrase "playing the race card" from all future conversation.

I was reminded of how toxic this term is in an interview, published this week, that former Vice President Dick Cheney did with Playboy magazine.

The interviewer asked:

"At different points, President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder have suggested that racism is a factor in criticism of them. Is there any truth in that?"

Cheney responded:

"I think they're playing the race card, in my view. Certainly we haven't given up - nor should we give up - the right to criticize an administration and public officials. To say that we criticize, or that I criticize, Barack Obama or Eric Holder because of race, I just think it's obviously not true. My view of it is the criticism is merited because of performance - or lack of performance, because of incompetence. It hasn't got anything to do with race."

Before we dissect the use of "playing the race card here," let's deal with the questioner and the answer more broadly. They both trade in racial absolutes, which is a mistake and diverts from honest dialogue.

In January of 2014, President Obama told The New Yorker:

"There's no doubt that there's some folks who just really dislike me because they don't like the idea of a black President." But he continued, "Now, the flip side of it is there are some black folks and maybe some white folks who really like me and give me the benefit of the doubt precisely because I'm a black President."

Furthermore, he explained:

"You can be somebody who, for very legitimate reasons, worries about the power of the federal government - that it's distant, that it's bureaucratic, that it's not accountable - and as a consequence you think that more power should reside in the hands of state governments. But what's also true, obviously, is that philosophy is wrapped up in the history of states' rights in the context of the civil-rights movement and the Civil War and Calhoun. There's a pretty long history there. And so I think it's important for progressives not to dismiss out of hand arguments against my Presidency or the Democratic Party or Bill Clinton or anybody just because there's some overlap between those criticisms and the criticisms that traditionally were directed against those who were trying to bring about greater equality for African-Americans."

Attorney General Holder for his part told ABC News in July:

"You know, people talking about taking their country back. ... There's a certain racial component to this for some people. I don't think this is the thing that is a main driver."

Neither man was dealing in absolutes, but in nuance. The deliberate use of "some" people in both cases blunts the kind of retort that Cheney delivers. And there is empirical evidence that "some" people is correct here. In a New York Times/CBS News poll taken in 2008 when Obama was running for office, 19 percent of respondents said they didn't think most people they knew would vote for a black presidential candidate and 6 percent said that they wouldn't vote for one themselves.

Cheney's attempt at blanket absolution from what was not a blanket accusation holds no weight.

But now, back to that detestable phrase, "playing the race card."

I have a particular revulsion for this phrase because of all that it implies: that people often invoke race as a cynical ploy to curry favor, or sympathy, and to cast aspersions on the character of others.

Maybe there are some people who do this, but I have never known a single person to admit to it or be proven to have done it.

Sure, living in a society still replete with racial bias can make one hypersensitive, to the point of seeing it even when it isn't there. But this to me isn't evidence of malicious intent, but rather the manifestation of chronic injury.

Furthermore, there are surely still people like the ones Booker T. Washington described:

"There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs - partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs."

But those who can realize a profit pale in comparison to the vast majorities of regular people trying to get by. To confuse the two is a deliberate deception.

It is one thing to debate the presence of racial motive in a circumstance, but it is quite another to suggest that people who suspect a racial component are exploiting some mythological, vaunted position and prerogative of aggrieved groups or exerting the exclusionary authority of the dominant group.

And furthermore, what other forms of discrimination are so routinely diminished and delegitimized in this way - cast as a game, a tactic or a stratagem?

The truth is that the people who accuse others - without a shred of evidence - of "playing the race card," claiming that the accusations of racism are so exaggerated as to dull the meaning of the term, are themselves playing a card. It is a privileged attempt at dismissal.

They seek to do the very thing they condemn: shut down the debate with a scalding-hot charge.

Now, about that coffee...

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Opinion | Stop Playing the 'Race Card' Card

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And yet, I would like to assume that the motive is noble even if something about it feels a shade off. Wanting to do something - even this - has to have a greater moral currency than resigning oneself to doing nothing.