At its heart, discrimination is when we are denied equal access to social spaces, opportunities, resources, or legal rights based on some facet of our identity. Discrimination can be encoded into laws, but it is more generally enforced by social custom and cultural norms. We frequently pass on stories, jokes, assumptions, and expectations that certain groups of people will behave in “undesirable” ways as a way to justify excluding them or thinking of them as less than ourselves, whether it is because of their gender, ethnicity, age, religious affiliation, nationality, sexual orientation, language, or any other intrinsic part of who they are. Confronting the subtle enforcement of discrimination in our own lives is the first step toward energizing our communities to become more open, compassionate, and vibrant.
We must realize that violence is not confined to physical violence. Fear is violence, caste discrimination is violence, exploitation of others, however subtle, is violence, segregation is violence, thinking ill of others and condemning others are violence.
