Discrimination?     Or discriminating?

By Don A. Bright 

I am a white male lower middle class heterosexual American citizen and, due to this profile, I have been forced into membership of a down-trodden minority. Aside from the fact that I am over aged, overweight and under-haired, I belong to the only group in North America that does not have the right to claim discrimination.  Whenever the charge of discrimination is hurled it is a given that it is aimed at my group.  And I don’t care who you are, that’s discrimination!   

Since I have been a long time champion of the under dog (I once tried to form a union for scabs) I am determined to rectify this wrong.  I demand discrimination status!  And if I don’t get it I am going to hurl the charge of discrimi…well, you get my drift. 

I hope by now the reader has gotten tired of the word discrimination.  I am tired of the word myself.  But I have been tired of the d-word a long time…long before I started this rant.  I think it’s time we started a discussion…not about what discrimination is, but what it isn’t. 

First and foremost we must set out the difference between the word discrimination and the word discriminating.  Discriminating behavior is not practicing discrimination as it is being charged today.  I have the right to discriminate in any way I want.  A few examples: 

I still to this day remember a talk my grandmother gave me when I was very young.  Where she got the notion I don’t know, but my grandmother told me that I should never trust a man with a mustache.  She said they were usually “crooks”.  For years I looked askance at any man with lip hair.  My dad always told me to shake hands when I was introduced to a person.  I tried to avoid it if there was a mustached lip involved.  I was being discriminating. 

Let’s say I own an apartment building. It is my private property. In order to be fair to my tenants I not only must maintain my apartment units in good order but that I am obligated to protect my tenants from unruly or suspicious new renters. In order to do so I must discriminate in their behalf. 

If a person comes to my office and wants to rent an apartment and I see something that I believe will be troublesome I have the right to refuse to do business with that person.  Until recently the glimpse of a tattoo would be one of these red flags. (I guess every person under fifty has at least one tattoo today.) Tattoos were taboo when I grew up.  (A study I read years ago concerning tattoos compared the percentage of prisoners in a penitentiary who had tattoos with the percentage of people in the general populace who wore them.  The results showed that criminals were more than 10 times more likely to be tattooed than non-criminals.) 

While more and more people today are displaying their skin art, I still think there is a weakness in the psyche of a person who needs colored patches of skin to get attention.  Now that is my opinion not proven science, ok?  But if you come to my office to rent an apartment and you sport a montage of skin messages, I have a right to turn you away.  It is of no concern to anybody or group as to whether I based my decision on my personal reasons or for business reasons; I am not guilty of “discrimination”.  I am being discriminate. 

If some persons enter my office dressed in t-shirts that are four sizes too big and baggy pants cut off just above their white socks and who are throwing hand signs to one another I am going to tell them that any discussion about renting would be a waste of their time and mine.  I don’t care if they have wives with babies in their arms…I have every reason to believe they are either members of a gang or emulators of gang members and I don’t want to subject my other tenants to the kind of conduct I think they will indulge in.  That is my right and it is not “discrimination”. 

If my tenants are all middle aged singles I have the right to turn away any applicants who have children.  That is an act of discriminating on behalf of my tenants.  It is not “discrimination”. 

If a person who cannot speak English wants to rent from me I will not accommodate them.  Why?  Because that will be terribly inconvenient and perhaps disturbing to me or some of my tenants.  That is all I need to say no.  And that is being discriminating and it is not “discrimination”. 

My point in all this is that any person has the right to discriminate for what ever reasons he or she holds.  To discriminate is to make decisions on demeanor, behavior or even suspected behavior and doing so is not “discrimination”.   

Government has no legal authority to accuse me of or punish me for my individual acts of discriminating based on my personal reasons concerning my homestead, business or private property.  The worst thing we citizens have allowed to happen during the last fifty years or so is the government’s defining any entity dealing with the general public as “public property”. 

If I own a restaurant, clothing store, apartments or any kind of business it is my private property, period.  And how I conduct my business is my business.  If the government interferes with my business practices or my personal activities by forcing me to not discriminate between individuals on the basis of them being a member of some “group”, I am the one being discriminated against. 

I’m sure a lot of multi-culturist, quota-loving, anti-individualists will disagree with me on this issue.  And I’m sure I’ll be called all kind of names.  Just be discriminating with your choice of words, please.