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Mythological Stranger's Blog
Saturday, March 12, 2005
Who's Driving the Car, Now?
Often times, we analogise being in charge or control of a given situation with being in the driver's seat of a car. I've been reading a number of articles recently on the issue of discrimination (be it real or imaginary), and the thought occured to me: who is most guilty of discriminating against a group of peoples in the United States today? So... rather than start shouting "Oh! I'm the only one who's EVER been discriminated against!" as so many of the groups in some of these articles seem to be doing; I thought I might compile a list of alleged discriminations, redress them as best I am able, and come to a conclusion on who really suffers most under the lash of discrimination, at the end of the article.

We'll start with the most often used (and accused) form of discrimination: racial/ethnic discrimination. While many cases of actual discrimination amongst people not of the same ethnicity as one another may exsist in the United States, it is not nearly so rampant as some would like you to believe.

[A point of interest in this: while minorities have, for many years, been insisting that the police single them out as suspects in crimes, recent data released by the Harris County Police Department states that, of all arrests made in 2004, 34% were black, 33% were white, and 31% were latino (with the remaining 2% being smaller minorities in Texas). This contradicts the claims of discrimination there, but lets not get sidetracked. ]

Nor has it been completely eliminated, as some others may like you to believe. Rather, the majority of racial descrimination that does still exsist has done one of two things, as a general rule. It has either:

1- Continued in the form of a stereotype. This form is on the rise, dramatically. (i.e. african-american people are atheletes, arab-american people own convenience stores, latino-american people are in gangs, etc. etc. etc.) There's an impossibly high number of stereotypes to keep track of. And I suspect that everyone is, at some point, guilty of desciminating against another person through stereotypes.

-or-

2- Moved to a more intimate setting. These are fanatics we all know and despise for their desciminatory beliefs. Groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, the Black Book, the American Nazi Party, and the Black Panthers all come to mind. And yes, I do view the KKK and the Black Panthers as being on the same tier of racial descimination. Basically, they started out as a group adbicating a particular breed of peace "by any means necessary". But when you use evil means to produce a result, you become evil yourself. (old addage: "You dance with the devil, the devil don't change. The devil changes you)

While these groups and their hatred usually stay underground (which is the best we can hope for, since we can't destroy them completely) infrequently a act of hatred will again draw the national eye to them once again. The most recent that I can think of at 5:45 am is the dragging death of James Byrd, Jr. Because of these infrequent "uprises" national news would have us believe this form of discrimination is on the rise, rather than in recession as it more that likely is, and shall remain.

I'll pause here to comment this: I know there are many of you out there who, if you should read this, will want to yell at me about how you've been discriminated against due to your race/creed/gender/age. I ask you to remember, I never said it didn't happen. Only that its not as common as many would have us believe.

Now on to a very touchy sub-topic of racial/ethnic descrimination. Anti-white male. Even sounds funny, doesn't it? When I say this, you all probably know to what I am refurring: affirmative action. I'm all for people being treated equally reguardless of race/creed/gender but affirmative action hinders that. To say that a buisiness must have a certain percentage of minority employees (once it has more than 20 employees, it has to abide by these "rules") in order to recieve government benefits, is to taint the very ideal of "equality" affirmative action was designed to prevent. Basically, my point of view on this is that it has served its purpose and now needs to be either rewritten, or scrapped alltogether.

Onwards to another old form of descimination: sexism. Descrimination based on gender used to be a rampant, and horrible thing for women to deal with. As little as 80 years ago, the "seen but not heard" rule was still in widespread use here in America. But sense then, it (and many other rules like it) has been shattered by women's libbers. And kudos to them for it. And, having given some serious thought to the issue, I've decided that they're just about done. I suppose women still don't play professional football. But in all honesty, I think that's more then likely because.... well.... they just don't want to. I suppose again they aren't allowed in calvary units in the armed forces. But I suspect that will change in the near future, if a woman decides she wants it to. And here's the big one. The only one that will ever quiet the waters of sexual descrimination: a female president. This is something I fully expect to see within my lifetime. (I'm not saying I'd vote for her... but I usually don't vote for "main party" candidates anyways).

Stereotypes about sexes are also still around. But they're not nearly so bad as racial stereotypes, when it comes down to it. Women are bad drivers. Men are all horn dogs. their generally untrue, and (while widely stated) are not widely believed in the modern day.

Before I move on to my next section, I have a gripe about descrimination against men: my car insurance is 4 times that of my sister. I have no accidents, and not tickets on my record. She has 2 accidents, and 4 tickets on hers. So why is my insurance higher? I'm a man. Now there's descrimination for you, folks.

Moving on. The next step goes hand in hand with my personal gripe against insurance companies: ageism. While this term is usually used to describe descrimination against the elderly (a descrimination that occurs all to often in my opinion. Just think on the stereotypes that come to mind when you hear the words "80 year old") I'm inclined to apply it to a different group alltogether: 18-25 year olds. Yes I know, I lose a certain amount of objectivity because this is the group I'm part of. But I find myself under a cornucopia of stereotypes as a young male. I'm classified as violent, sexist, and foolish; because of my age. I know I'm off on a tangeant, but I'm writing this as much to vent as anything else, so I've a right to be on whatever tangeant I like.

Thats a short section, largely consumed by my personal gripe about the only form of descrimination i've been fully exposed to on a personal level.

Due to my belief that I cannot be fully objective in my opinion of descrimination based on sexual orientation, i've opted to leave the section on this out completely. If you want to read about it, go here but keep in mind that this site is blowing the amount of said descimination way out of proportion, as the media tends to do.

On to my last section (not the last type of descrimination, but the last I'm going to list and redress tonight). Descrimination based on belief. In a country founded on belief in religious tolerance, and acceptance, this is one which should, truely, not exsist. And yet it does. And the ACLU is to blame for it, in large part. In the past 20 years, the ACLU has become quite daring in how they willfully seek and destroy any reference to Chrisianity, under the guise of "separation of church and state". What they are forgetting, is that absense of a belief system (aka religion/church) is itself a belief system. So, by removing historical landmarks

(such as:
the 10 commandments monument in Mercer County, Kentucky;
the 10 commandments in the Alabama Judicial Building,
or most recently, the bible on display as part of a memorial outside a Harris county civil courthouse)

The ACLU is, in effect, not helping to stop descrimination against a belief system, but is rather helping to spread descrimination against Christianity, and any other religion forced to remove hystorical landmarks, for the sake of someone who wishes not to see them.

I pose a question to you, on the subject of belief based descrimination. why is the minority always right in this situation? Do you supose that, if I were to get a couple of thousand people to say that tall statues were a means of supporting one faith over another, we could get the statue of liberty removed? It may sound absurd, but it really goes along the same lines if you think about it.

My conclusion: yes descrimination exsists. That was never in question. but the group most desciminated against is a odd breed, and one you would not expect. The ones who I feel are most desciminated against are christians. So to answer my question about who's in the drivers seat in America: atheists are (and the ACLU).

I may be wrong. But this is my opinion. You're free to not like it, but do not flame my comments section. Constructive comments are, as always, welcome.

Have a nice night, everybody!
~M.S.

"Sometimes I feel descriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me! How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It's beyond me."
~Zora Neale Hurston
Comments:
I think in large part I based that on the fact that every other form of descrimination is 1 person against another. Christians are being discriminated against by the government. Just makes it so much worse, in my opinion.
 
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