Causes and Effects of Discrimination

There are relatively more familiar types of discrimination, such as discrimination based on
gender, sexual orientation, race, disability or religion. These all are forms of direct
discrimination. Another form of direct discrimination is sexual harassment. All these types of
discrimination are direct actions against certain groups of people, based on prejudices or
stereotypes. At the same time, there is also indirect discrimination, which is usually discussed
not so wide and actively. Indirect discrimination includes such situations, where neutral positions
or actions cause effects of discrimination. Along with these two major types of discrimination,
we must mention institutional discrimination, which involves discriminatory practices, laws, and
procedures within a certain company, social institution, or even country. Here we are talking
about procedures that cause discriminatory consequences. A striking example of institutional
discrimination is the South African Apartheid.

Discrimination rarely causes a certain single effect. Usually effects of discrimination multiply
and each effect leads to several new consequences. Discrimination is often related to such thing
as social distance. It’s always easier for people to judge those who are not related to their social
group. The more far some group of people stands from the majority, the easier for the majority is
to discriminate them.

Talking about causes of discrimination, we must highlight one thing that often forms
discriminatory behavior among adults. Discrimination can be learned. Most people who support
discrimination were raised by parents who support the same ideas. Teachers also may form
discriminatory behavior of their students. Media often support discriminatory processes, since
every time we talk about discrimination without doing anything to stop it, we also give it a
certain level of social legitimacy. Since contact between different groups doesn’t help to fight
discrimination, modern society often pays attention to social institutions, and education, in
particular. Of course, implementing multicultural principles in education, we support diversity,
and weaken discrimination. At the same time, immigration policies, special attention to civil
rights, as well as quote hiring, form a strong basis against discrimination. Another important
thing is relations between individuals, since true love and friendship between people from
different groups is the best way to kill discrimination at the very beginning.

There are different political, psychological, social, and economic effects of discrimination.
Victims of discrimination lose their self-confidence, they feel like outsiders. Such effects often
become stronger due to political and economic discrimination. Inequality, ignorance and
prejudices cause a lot of negative effects on many levels. Not only affects discrimination peace
within a particular country, but also a world peace as well. This is a reason why many
international organizations provide new instruments and laws, in order to stop discrimination
worldwide. However, despite the fact that such organizations introduce new incentives, these
incentives rarely are something more than just papers and agreements. Many countries ignore
international instances, or accept such incentives only on paper.

We can see effects that discrimination causes on religion, race, and other specific groups of
people. In USA, race discrimination still remains a hot issue, due to a number of illegal actions
of police against black people. Populistic rhetoric of conservative politicians pushes racists to
express their hate in public, promoting racism. There is also discrimination of the aborigines in
Australia, since their culture is quite different from European culture. White majority don’t
understand native people of Australia, creating distance between social groups. Another common
type of discrimination is religious discrimination. In USA, this issue became a common topic for
discussions after the introduction of Trump’s so-called Muslim ban. Islamic terrorists formed a
common image of Muslims as terrorists and danger for civilized world. It is a stereotype which
can lead to discriminatory immigration policy. Religious discrimination is dangerous to the
world’s peace, since every religion has a lot of believers, so every time when rights of this group
are violated somewhere on the planet, it may cause large-scale conflicts and wars.

According to studies, discrimination causes a direct effect on victim’s behavior. Moreover,

different types of discrimination have a direct impact on a particular group, and an additional
effect on other groups. For example, racial discrimination affects people suffered from ethnic
discrimination, leading to depression and anxiety.

It takes a lot of time for victims of discrimination to cope with consequences. All victims need to
fight against their fear, depression, and low self-esteem, searching for ways to survive within a
society. Every victim faces the need to develop his or her own strategy of behavior. Some
victims even try to ignore discrimination, and deny it. They claim that a certain incident was
caused by other reasons, or they try to justify such discrimination, searching for the reason in
their own behavior, look, words, etc. Another common strategy of victims is avoidance. People
try to avoid or ignore situations that can cause discriminatory incidents with the highest
probability. Obviously, such a practice cannot decrease the level of discrimination, since these
people intentionally increase distance between them and majority, thus making it harder to
integrate discriminated groups in the society. Obviously, world peace is impossible within such
conditions. Discrimination divides and dissolves the society, creating an auspicious environment
for wars.

Conclusion
Discrimination is a biggest challenge for modern societies. First of all, discrimination represents
a threat to democracy, since latter is based on principles of equality. Discrimination is widely
supported in societies based on strict hierarchy. Usually such societies build hierarchies based on
religion, gender, or origin. Most of such societies support discrimination and promote it. In turn,
Democracy represents efforts to build equal society, where equality is a basis of human rights.
Of course, any kinds of discrimination are threats for such an idea.

Not only is discrimination a threat to the civilized society, but for its direct victims as well.
Discrimination directly violates rights of a person, leading to a number of bad consequences.
Such consequences may vary depending on the type of violence against this victim, alienation,
psychological problems, exclusion, and so on.

First of all, discrimination is selfish. Our point is that discrimination is wrong, doesn’t matter
which kind of discrimination it is. Discrimination is everywhere, in every country, and in every
part of our everyday lives. There are many different causes of discrimination, and one of the
most common causes is parents that always teach their kids to think the way they do. Parents
who support racism, sexism, homophobia, raise their children and spread these dangerous
diseases. First of all, parents shouldn’t teach their children hate, since hate always produces only
more hate, which leads to discriminatory actions, conflicts, and wars. We already mentioned a lot
of problems caused by discrimination. The only way to stop discrimination is to implement
proper laws and protect human rights at the government level. In turn, the society must support
victims of discrimination, helping them to cope with consequences, as well as to integrate in the
society.