Discrimination

It's a simple word, one we've all heard, and one we all associate with evil. It's wrong, wrong, wrong to discriminate! Or ... is it?

Discrimination is defined as "the treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit." That's how it is generally used. More generally it means "to make or constitute a distinction in or between; differentiate".

Discrimination has to have a reference. You have to either express or at least imply what the discrimination is in terms of. For instance, there is "discrimination on the basis of age" or "discrimination on the basis of race" or "discrimination on the basis of money". That last one is probably not the first one that comes to mind, but when you're paying for something, you had better be able to distinguish between a ten dollar bill and a twenty dollar bill, or you won't know if the cashier gives you the proper change. That's a good thing.

Our employer just notified us that there are "new federal race and ethnicity categories". Both my employer and every employer my son (who is currently job-seeking) has come across has this very odd thing going on. But it was also in the Census, so you may have seen it as well. As it turns out, it's a federal requirement. There is the question of ethnicity, and what they want to know is "Are you Hispanic/Latino or Not Hispanic/Latino?" This baffles me and I can't figure out why the question is asked. But what I can tell you is that this is discrimination at its very basic level, surrounding one, single, solitary ethnicity.

Interestingly, while the definition specifies "making a distinction in favor of or against", that never seems to come up. For instance, affirmative action was explicitly discrimination. In affirmative action, the one making the distinction was required to discriminate on the basis of race in favor of minority races. Somehow that didn't seem to upset any minority races. I never heard, "Wait! That's discrimination!"

Discrimination is actually required every day. Yes, required. We applaud someone with "discriminating taste". That could mean that they were very classy, or, in the case of a food connoisseur, they had the ability to distinguish between flavors in a dish. "I detect a hint of nutmeg and ... is that cumin?" Impressive, not evil. You need to discriminate to wear proper attire to work or play. You need to determine if someone is a good friend or just a pretender. You ought to be able to discriminate between an email from a friend and a scam email. And, of course, it is important to be able to discriminate between the truth and lies.

Discrimination for the purpose of injuring another is a bad thing. Sometimes discrimination to give preferential treatment is a bad thing. But discrimination is not by definition a bad thing. It may be wrong to prevent entrance into the country based on race (discrimination), but it is not wrong to tell the difference (discrimination) between legal and illegal immigrants. It might be wrong to deny the rights of people based on "sexual orientation", but it's not wrong to be able to discriminate between meanings of words like marriage and "civil unions". There is discrimination that shouldn't occur, but don't let anyone tell you that discrimination is always bad. The claim itself is discriminatory, differentiating between "those who see things like I do" and "those who don't". It just suggests ignorance, not wisdom.