Have you ever felt discriminated against?
On these boards we have discussed discrimination the Gay community faces, but as we all know, there are many other forms of discrimination out there.
Discrimination HURTS.
The Merriam Webster dictionary defines discrimination as: "To distinguish or to show favor or disfavor unjustly".
My mother did her best to shield me from discrimination, and this is BEFORE she realized I was gay. Because, not only am I a gay man, but I also have Native American and African American ancestry. My mother knew discrimination, having been raised as a Native American/African American in the 1930's and 1940's. I suppose she wanted to keep me from experiencing the same hatred and injustice she was exposed to as a child.
The first time I heard a racial slur aimed at my family was when I was about 5 or 6 years old. I was shopping with my mother and her father (my grandfather, who looked quite a bit like Ossie Davis) and I remember hearing someone say "HUMPH! Now that's HIGH YELLOW if I ever saw it!" This woman was staring right at us when she said it, and later I asked my mother what "High Yellow" meant, and she told me it was a hateful word for people like us. People like us? Some people pronounced it "High Yeller" which was even MORE offensive. Since I didn't look black, my mother always told me to never tell anyone about it. "Even one teeny tiny drop of Black blood is too much" she would tell me. I didn't understand it then, but I do now. The African American community would never accept me because I didn't look Black. The White community would never accept me because I wasn't White.
I had a harder time hiding my Native American heritage, since I have many of the typical Native American features; high cheekbones, reddish brown complexion, etc. Back when I was little, it definitely WAS NOT COOL to be Native American. We were perceived as beggars, robbers and liars.
And since I was raised Roman Catholic in a predominantly Protestant state, I faced some discrimination because of my religion.
But there are many other forms of discrimination, aren't there? Discrimination against obese people, Jewish people, handicapped people, foreign people, and other people too.
Have you ever felt discriminated against? Why? What happened and what did you do about it?