Discrimination

Name: Varun Nadesh / Sureshram Mathurayar A/L Ramayiah Student ID: 0319043 / 0320413 Lecturer: Ms. Bernice Chauly Course: English 101 Topic: Discrimination Date: 30 June 2014

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Varun Nadesh / Sureshram Mathurayar A/L Ramayiah
Ms. Bernice Chauly
English 101
30 June 2014
Discrimination
Around 66 years ago, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was scripted for the sole purpose of ensuring the welfare of all human beings are safe guarded regardless of the individual’s background. Discrimination is stemmed from a subtle form of prejudice and stereotype. The modern day society is quite oblivious to the seriousness of this matter. Studies show that police officers are more likely to halt and search blacks than whites. In New York City, 80% of the stops made were blacks and 85% of those people were frisked, compared to a measly 8% of white people that were halted (“The Reality of Racial Profiling”). Article 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights instills the zero-tolerance against discrimination. Discrimination is the prejudicial treatment of a person, racial group or minorities restricting members on the grounds of race, sex or age based on categories disregarding their individual attributes. This predicament does not only happen in under-developed but also developed countries among all ages in various places. This mostly happens because society is always thriving to embrace sameness instead of something different. Discrimination comes in various forms such as racial discrimination, gender discrimination as well as sexual orientation discrimination. Racial discrimination is one of the major factors contributing to discrimination in this world. More often than not, it yields the form of societal movements, principles, or political schemes that contemplate different races to be categorized as
Nadesh / Mathurayar, 2 innately superior or inferior to each other, grounded on alleged shared hereditary traits and potentials. One of the few scenarios where racial discrimination occurs is in their own workplace. Employees who are considered so called “minorities” tend to fall under racial quotas. For example, in Queens, a bakery was fined $25,000 because they told Jamilah DaCosta “I can’t hire you because you’re black” when she tried applying for a job at Framboise Patisserie (Place, Durkin). In addition to that, people who are racially discriminated tend to be given a lower salary then the other colleagues. For instance, the wage system in UAE-GCC is entirely grounded on the color of the operatives’ passports (Shamsi). Therefore, this means that the people from UAE are more likely to be paid more than those who are from other countries. Apart from that, racism also can be seen in media. A lot of movies nowadays stereotype certain races to fixed characters. For example, African-Americans are usually portrayed as villains or how Indians are always made to sound like they have very thick accents. This can sometimes be very offensive because it is not entirely true. On that note, in the field of sports, players are always scrutinized and are thrown racial taunts or even provoked with gestures during matches. This occured during one of the football matches played in Spain where the fans started making fun of the opponent’s team by making monkey chants and impressions. When this happened, the UEFA made a statement saying that they have a zero-tolerance towards any kind of racism, both on or off the pitch (McGowan). There was even an incident where the Los Angeles Clippers owner, Donald Sterling told his girlfriend that he does not want her to bring black people to his matches. He was so angry and bothered by the fact that his girlfriend posted photos of her with other black guys. He kept insisting that it was a sin (Goyette).
Nadesh / Mathurayar, 3 Furthermore, another form of discrimination that is getting out of hand is gender discrimination. Sexism is the preconception in which it is based on a person's gender. This type of discrimination originated from customary stereotypes of gender roles, and may comprise of the belief that a person of one sex is fundamentally grander to a person of other races. Sexist jokes are also another form of gender discrimination, where in this case the seriousness of this matter is often taken lightly as a way to lighten up the atmosphere. An example of a sexist joke sounds something like this: a dying woman said she wanted to ‘feel like a woman’ just before she died, so a nearby man agreed to help her out. He took off his shirt, handed it to her, and said: “Here, iron this.” (Sanghani). Although gender discrimination is supposed to be affecting both genders, however it is usually women who are marginalized through this discrimination. Not only marginalized, women are often objectified in advertisements and in the media to make it more appealing to audiences who are predominantly male. Rap artists have widely exploited this with the use of scantily clad women in most of their music videos flaunting their wealth. Advertisers are still under the impression that “sex sells” and women are the ones that do the housework. In countries like Pakistan, women are not given opportunities to obtain a proper education. Based on the statistics released by the Federal Education Ministry of Pakistan the overall literacy rate of the nation is only a mere 46 percent while only 26 percent of women are literate (Latif). They are never given an opportunity to voice out their opinions; such was the case of 16-year-old Malala Yousafzai who was shot in the head by the Taliban for campaigning for girls’ education. According to Malala, “I was just one target for their violence, there are many others for whom we must continue so that children all over the world can have a right to go to school” (ABC).
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Women are also subjected to discrimination in workplace. According to a survey conducted by office provider Business Environment, it was established that that 27 per cent of women admitted they would be reluctant to hire a woman of childbearing age (Sanghani). Apart from that, non-heterosexuals are usually treated very much differently from other people who are heterosexuals. In most societies, lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender or more commonly abbreviated as LGBT are often openly discriminated as members of society. Their right to freedom and marriage is only limited to a handful number of countries and only in certain states in the United States of America. In the most recent Gay Pride Parade, seven more states in the US have legalized same-sex marriage (Gannett). This shows how slow the transition is even in a liberal country such as the US. Contrastingly in Malaysia, conservative Islamists staged an anti-gay protest outside the venue hosting the concert of American pop-singer, Adam Lambert who sparked controversy after declaring his sexual orientation (Loh). Apart from that, they are always bullied and harassed in their respective schools and workplaces, segregation and name-callings are just a few forms of abuse. According to a report by BBC News, gay and lesbian firefighters are subjected to frequent abuse at workplace. Apart from name-calling, they faced some of the few abuse physical abuse and having safety equipment tampered with (“Gay Firefighter Abuse”). In worst cases, countries strongly against LGBT enforce anti-gay laws. The bill banning "propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations" still needs to be licensed by the selected upper house and authorized into law by President Vladimir Putin, but neither step is in doubt (“Russian Anti-gay Bill Passes”).

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To sum it all up, discrimination comes in various forms. Although rights are stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, discrimination and inequalities still do occur. Everyone has the right to stand up and speak up for his or her rights. A proper platform should be provided for everyone to voice out their dissatisfaction towards others than having to resort to violence. Moreover, severe punishments should also be implemented on employers who discriminate. Employees should be judged on their qualifications and the merits of their work, rather on their sexual orientation and gender identity. Furthermore, society should be more tolerant and understanding towards those who are different from themselves. If people could learn to set aside the disparities, there would be a lesser amount of conflicts happening. In addition, all the Non-profit Organizations have to play their role by collaborating with the United Nations to help combat and eradicate this sinful practice to ensure that the world is a better place for the generations to come.
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