Poll: Have you, personally, ever been discriminated against?

[Woodsey]

Never. White, English and hetero. Not exactly the easiest target for discrimination.

 

[Pierce Graham]

I was once, racially. I was raised in a small town in Canada, and near the town was a Jewish summer camp. I ran across a small group of Jewish children in town. Ethnically I'm German (pale, blond hair, blue eyes) and they were yelling insults at me, calling me a filthy Nazi and the like. I just kept walking.

 

[Alkaline]

Harassed in real life 'cause I'm gay, harassed on the Internet 'cause I'm an Aspergian.

So, yeah.

>Captcha: magnetic ndinnit

 

[A Shadows Age]

I'm a nerd. Not quite the basement-dweller type, but it makes up most of my already shitty existence. So people tell me that they think I'm a pathetic little shit whenever I speak up, or most of the time they simply completely ignore my existence. Now, I am a very violent person. I do my best not to step out of line, but I have often punched people in the face (or otherwise physically harmed) for insulting me. Combined with constant pressure, feeling of rejection, resentment, and well-founded self-hatred, I really, really fucking hate my life overall. The only reason I stick to it, is because I know damn well that it is the only fucking thing I'm ever gonna have.

Try the outdoors, always helps me with my anger, as long as it's quite anyway. Insects, birds plenty of good things out there all for you, just gotta look. Oh and they don't fucking talk shit either.

 

[Uskis]

Im a white male, possibly the most discriminated demographic there is. By default I am racist, evil, a potential rapist, can't dance, prejudiced, uneducated, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, and patriotic.

My attitude is to let those who discriminate you believe whatever the hell they want. In my experience, any attempt to educate those who believe I am not one of those things has been met with increased hostility. I say if someone calls me a Racist, Evil, Rhythmless Rapist, I will pat them lightly on the head and congratulate them for being so smart.

No way white males are the most discriminated demographic. Even though the "white man" is constructed by many oppressed groups as being the perpetrator, in my experience, this doesn't evolve into discrimination of any significance in Western countries. When you are a heterosexual white male, you are an individual, not a representative of a race/gender/sexuality. For example, when muslim people we're attacked in the early hours after the tragedy in Norway when people thought it to be Al Queda realted, the muslims as a perceived etno-religious group (meaning you can look like a muslim but be Guatemalan like a poster earlier) were held accountable by some as being responsible for the attack. When it came out that the killer was ethnic Norwegian, white people didn't attack each-other or anything. Now, this was a case of a deranged individual, not a religious or ethnic group. White Norwegian people can't be blamed for him like muslims can't be blamed for 9/11. Being white, male and heterosexual we are privileged, and I think it's hard for us to understand what it means to be discriminated against for something we can't change (here meaning life-style like being metal etc.). I'm a white hetero male, and I have never ever seen or felt any real discrimination to speak of against me or my white friends. Have I tried feeling hostility on the street from colored people, calling me/thinking that I'm racist? Yes! But this is not real discrimination with any weight as much as it is bursts of anger stemming from an uneven distribution of power in society. They can call me whitey or potato, but that doesn't change the fact that I can get a job a million times easier than them. Or that the police won't stop me on the street and strip-search me because of my race. Minority groups blaming the white heterosexual man stems from frustrations of being oppressed by the dominant discourse in society. To say it shortly, they can't "discriminate" me, I'm in power.

Or am I wrong? Have you as a white person felt systematically discriminated to the point that it is disempowering you?

Yes, being an atheist in a class where everyone is a fundamentalist muslim meant never having any friends, told every day that i would go too hell and of cource to top off with, having to bypass the theory of evoloution in biology as they all cried out that it was a lie.
In Denmark off all places!

What school was this, in what part? "Folkeskole" or one of the religious "friskoler"?

 

[Kayevcee]

Being a Catholic in Glasgow isn't the safest lifestyle. I attended a Catholic private school (which meant green blazers, the colour of the Catholic-associated football team in the city which just makes it worse). I've had all kinds of verbal abuse and physical threats- never any real violence thankfully, partly because I look like a pre-serum Steve Rogers and I guess they'd be afraid of killing me by accident. Buses with me on them have suffered the occasional rock through the window courtesy of the local non-denomenational school, although that may just have been generic vandalism and the attempted murder of complete strangers that goes hand in hand with growing up in Glasgow.

There was one time I had to go to my grandparents' house which is in a pretty nasty area and a bunch of local kids ran out and started flinging rocks and gobstoppers at me. I think that was more of a "private school = rich" thing (which certainly wasn't true- my parents scrimped and saved to afford the fees) than a Catholic thing. It's never too early to get your kids started on the path to sectarian violence, though!

If anybody's interested in the backstory of Glasgow's tensions, just put some combination of "Celtic", "Rangers" and "the Old Firm" into google. There's plenty of info out there. I don't want my experiences to put anyone off Glasgow as a city- I'm talking about a few (like, less than a dozen) isolated incidents over the course of about seven years. If you stay out of the dodgy areas it's a really cool place to spend time.

-Nick

 

[kinapuffar]

My chosen profession is musician.

Why do people feel the need to remind me how difficult it is, and how stupid that chocie is?
I fucking know! It's not a choice, the mere thought of doing anything else as a profession, as a career, makes me want to throw myself off of a large mountain into a valley of cacti.
That's how boring everything else is to me.

And they keep telling me I'm wasting my talent.
Yes, I could be whatever I want, my IQ is 160, I'm a white male, and I'm not ugly, not fit either, but not ugly. But I don't want to hear people say that the profession I chose, the profession of my father, is worthless.
Musician isn't just a job, it defines who you are as a person. By calling that worthless, they are calling ME worthless, and my father worthless.

For what? Being who we are.


Other than that I have never been discriminated against.
I've been bullied a few times, but nothing I didn't take care of. One bully threw pieces of wood at me in woodshop, I picked up a piece and put it next to me. Waited a few moments, then turned around and nailed him in the head with it and laughed.
Then when he got pissed I socked him in the jaw. He didn't want to get up again after that.

Then I went into a sort of megalomaniac speech where I derided him for being a low-brow subhuman and how I was so far above his filthy status that he couldn't even hope to match me in his wildest dreams, and how from now on anything I say, as far as he's concerned, is word of God.

The teacher was of course not there at the moment, or I would have been stopped after the wood block throw.
Luckily he was pretty hated by everyone, and there weren't that many people there since we had classes divided into groups for woodshop. So no one was going to rat me out, and no one would believe him if he told the truth.

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

Yes and the pole is stupid considering that there is nothing stopping multiple reasons on one or multiple occasions...

Funny thing. Isn't it a "Poll"? A "pole" is a tearm for Polish people.

 

[Uskis]

Yes. I'm half Romanian, half Hungarian. Idiots from Romania hate me because I'm a dirty Hungarian. Idiots from Hungary hate me because I'm a dirty Romanian.

I forgot how much weird nationalism you have in Eastern/Central Europe. I was half a year exchange-student in Lithuania, and watched a Slovak and Hungarian dude having an awkward moment when they found out where they were from. It went something like this:
Slovak: "Yeah, nice to meet you, where are you from"
Hungarian "I'm Hungarian, you?"
Slovak "I'm from Slovakia...."

Slovak "Well, I don't hate you or anything..."
Hungarian "Yeah don't worry, I'm not one of those either"
Me: ????

Turns out there was a border dispute going on, and something about a Hungarian minority in Slovakia, and some politician saying he would drive tanks to Budapest. There's a lot of ugly nationalism around those parts

 

[Westaway]

As I white heterosexual male, no. Also, my best friend is Vietnamese, and he hasn't either. Good Ol Canadia.

 

[Dragoon]

Yup. Watching lots of anime and playing lots of video games is an easy way of becoming a social outcast in suburban New York.

And I guess you could say height, too. I get mocked for being shorter than most of my friends pretty often.

Replace NY with where I live and I have the exact same problems as you :L

 

[Meta 99]

Does people calling me heretic and swinging a bible because I'm atheist count as religious, because if so then yes!

 

[Chelsea O'shea]

i am a transgender woman,i get discrimination from all sides pretty much.

 

[the_tramp]

I got flat out asked in an interview 'Why do you have long hair?'.

It was a telesales job, i.e. I wouldn't even meet any customers.

 

[vivster]

i am discriminated against because i'm intelligent, tall and male
and therefore hitting everything that is stupid, female or smaller than me is apparently off limits
no matter how physical the aggression against me is

"stop hitting this guy...you are smarter than him"
"stop hitting this girl... you should not hit girls"
"why did you hit this kid? it's much smaller than you"

so the next time i'm getting attacked by a small stupid girl i should probably say thank you and turn the other cheek...

p.s.
i do not hit people all the time
i am discriminated by principle

 

[Scarim Coral]

I have my fair share of racial discrimination (name calling and some people treat me differently just because I'm Chinese) in the past.
These day I haven't met any jerks but my lifestlye seen to be a problem to my family (I don't care if you think I'm alone, I'm just anti-social, deal with it).

 

[masher]

When I was younger, I spent the night at a friend's house for a whole Birthday thingy. I later learned that his Grandmother said, "Don't let that Korean come back again." I am Filipino. Still, I have to admit I burst out laughing at the time.