Let Me Get Something Straight

I’ve read my share of articles online. On various news site, I’ve read stories that have implied that the human race has taken a step backwards. Why would I say such a thing? Some people appear to have lost the ability to be responsible for their own actions anymore. I’ve read articles about various cases that make you think “well, they should have known that in the first place,” or “what else did they think would happen,” but this isn’t all the reason. The straw that broke the camel’s back is every reason they made up to make themselves look like the victim. They bring up things that, although completely irrelevant to anything, usually end up being a deterrent for opposing arguments: Discrimination.

Michelle McCusker, an unmarried teacher at a Roman Catholic school in New York, says she was discriminated against and fired for being pregnant and has filed a federal complaint. Why was she fired? It was a conflict of two things: she was unmarried and pregnant (keep in mind that she also told administrators that she had no plans to marry) and a teacher at a Roman Catholic school. Its teachers’ handbook dictates that “a teacher can not violate the tenets of Catholic morality,” that is exactly what she has done. This does not follow the school’s rules, so she was fired. Does this should like discrimination? Not at all. If this still sounds like discrimination to you, let me clarify things I bit.

Discrimination is defined as “treatment or consideration based on class or category rather than individual merit.” For example, being pulled over without any legitimate reasons, just because you’re black and riding in a nice car, is discrimination. “Driving while black” is not a crime, and they are treating you differently based on your “class or category rather than individual merit” (in this case, race), so it is discrimination. However, pulling over someone who is going 20 MPH over the speed limit who happens to be black isn’t discrimination. His “class or category” wasn’t even relevant in this situation; he was breaking the law. Discrimination plays no part in this situation, just like it plays no part in McCusker’s situation.

Here’s a case that I’m sure everybody is familiar with: the one concerning R. Kelly. R. Kelly was arrested for child pornography, for having sex with underage girls. I’m not going to argue with anybody about this; there were already video tapes and photos of him having sex with minors. But did people hesitate to bring race into this? No, not at all, they couldn’t wait to bring up race. Why does this get me so mad? Because it’s so irrelevant. This case has nothing – NOTHING – to do with his race, yet people are willing to make it seem like so. Apparently, every lawsuit that has ever been filed against a black celebrity is racial discrimination at it’s purest. People want to make things seem like this is all about race, it’s not, it’s about what they’re actually being sued for.

I can tell you one thing: if you want to stop the real discrimination based on race, gender, sexual orientation, or anything else, you need to stop crying discrimination in situations where it does not even exist. Furthermore, you cannot bring up these things like it defines 100% of your being and be expected to be treated like an equal, because you’re only stressing how different people are due to this. You will only have to bring up race when it is relevant, or else you are saying that someone of race A is better than someone of race B. People need to start take responsibility for their actions instead of trying to escape it by making up some imaginary discrimination. Discrimination is a serious term, and people need to start using it correctly.