Prejudice And Discrimination In The United States

One of the biggest social problems in the United States is the act of prejudice and discrimination among its people. Often times these two can be mistaken for the same thing, but prejudice and discrimination have two separate meanings. According to the dictionary being prejudice means to have a “preconceived judgment or opinion” (Merriam). About a person or thing, although prejudice is not acted upon it is merely just the thought or an indirect statement. On the other hand, Discrimination is “The unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex” (Wikipedia). Therefore this means that a prejudice opinion or thought is acted out upon in a harmful or non-harmful way. I
Simply lacking the proper knowledge due to how a person is raised can have a huge impact on whether somebody is open to people who are perceived as different by society's unjust standards. One of the biggest factors in discrimination in today's time to me is race, racial problems are constantly being blasted by yellow journalism, which makes it clearer and the most talked about. Discrimination is part of daily life and is nearly unavoidable by anyone. Often times we will discriminate without the knowledge that it is taking place. Many people also may grow up with parents who are considered “close-minded” and do not acknowledge that America is becoming a more diverse economy rather than a suppressed one like it was in earlier years. As the years go by more and more people are learning about races, cultures and other important things to help lessen the occurrence of discrimination in the United
That’s because I had the lack of education about the subjects, my small school never taught me the difference between them. I am a firm believer that the more you know the less likely you are to discriminate against someone or at least the more conscious you are about your choice of words. I grew up with a very diverse family on my father's side and for that, I am extremely grateful. My uncle and sister are both parts of the LGBT community, my aunt is black and I have many cousins that are of Latin decent. It also helped to be a daughter of a law enforcement officer of nearly twenty-four years. I have come face to face with discrimination and have felt the sting of its impact, just not as severely as others. I was lucky to be taught that there is no such thing as a “normal” person. My parents always let us be our own person, and never pushed a religion on us, giving us the choice of whether or not to attend church and they let us make our own opinions about things, and not telling us how it is. Not many people are that lucky and allowed to have that choice while growing up. Many times people will make fun when someone points out the diversity that is surrounding them, but what they do not see is that it honestly helps me be more open-minded to people who are considered “different” than I