DISCRIMINATION You see it everyday, society treating each other as though we are not all equals. As though we are not all human. Discrimination! Weather it is on the street or on the job you see it everywhere. There is discrimination against the mentally and physically challenged, against people of different cultures and people of the opposite sex. Just to name a few. My first example of discrimination is the discrimination of special-ed. students. A co-worker of mine shared a story with me of when she was in 3rd grade, in Kansas City, Kansas. She remembers being on the playground with the rest of the kids and seeing the Special Ed kids come out to play. But you could really tell them apart from the rest of the kids, because they were made to wear red vests any time they were outdoors. She believed this was so the teachers could tell them apart from the rest of the kids. But she also remembers when the other students saw these red vests they all chanted, Special Ed in the red. All of the kids would stay on the opposite side of the playground as the Special Ed kids. Many people don t realize the affect that this type of treatment may have on a person. Now some of these Special Ed students may not realize what is going on, but many of them do. To think that this kind of treatment was allowed. Another thing mentioned was that when a student was in trouble for wrong doing, they were sent to the Special Ed Room for the day as their punishment. So they believed it was a punishment to have to be in Special Ed. All types of discrimination are wrong, but to discriminate against those who for the most part cannot defend themselves is worse. My second example of discrimination is discrimination against people of different cultural backgrounds. The team leader at my job is a black woman. She lives in my hometown, Knoxville, IA. She moved to Knoxville in about 6th grade with her mom, dad and a younger brother and sister. When she moved to small town Knoxville there were no blacks, at least no young ones. So the school system was completely white students. Coming from a very culturally mixed school, this was a culture shock to her. Her first day of school there was a new experience to her. She had some girls trying to be her friend. But she had her first encounter with racism. She was catching a lot of racial slurs. By mid afternoon she had enough of this school she decided she was never coming back. She was walking down the hall and she saw her younger sister being picked on. Her sister had her hair in little braids and the boy that was picking on her grabbed her by her braids at told her she was just a Niger and she didn t belong there. Well the two sisters ended up in the office but the white boy got to return to class. The girls mom was called and brought in. As soon as the mother confronted the principal she was told that there family was in fact Niger s and they might as well get used to it. You think they had enough but they stayed there. Shortly after all this, the younger of the sisters was riding her bike around the block that she lived on. On the other side of the block from them, a man saw the little girl riding and pulled a gun on her and started calling her obscene names telling her to get back home. The girl scared to death went home and told her parents about the incident and the police were called. The only thing police said to the man with the gun was that he shouldn t be doing that to little kids. Sort of a slap on the hand.

A third example of discrimination is sexual discrimination. Although I ve never seen this, it is known that it happens everyday. In the workplace and in sports are two popular places you see this. Many women get discriminated against, they get told they are not big enough for the job, or it is a job for men. Also for sports, woman get told that it is a mans sport like football and baseball to name a few. Woman will get injured in a mans sport. But on the flip side men may get discriminated against also. A man may try to get a job in a female dominate environment, he may get denied the job because of other reasons but really because he is male. These are just a few examples of the many different types of discrimination there are in the world today. It will all never go away completely but if more people in this world would look at each other as human and equals it would make living for many a lot easier and happier. 842 words