The word “minority” means the small number or part, especially a number that is less than half the whole number. The word “discrimination” means, treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction towards, a person based on the group, class, or category to which the person is perceived to belong. In this case, we are referring to people, racial and sex and gender minorities. As far as race goes, White Americans are the racial majority in the United States. African Americans account for the largest racial minority in the United States. Hispanic and Latino population make up the largest ethnic minority group. In the 1990s, the term “minority” usually referred to four major racial and ethnic groups: African Americans, American Indians and Alaska Natives, Asians and Pacific Islanders, and Hispanics. When it comes to sex and gender, heterosexual cisgender individuals account for the largest group, they are the majority.
When you have a majority of people who are one way, those who are not the same more likely than not will suffer from some type of discrimination, or unfair treatment. There is sometimes a group of people who believe the way they are is the only way to be. They may even use scientific or religious reasoning to back up their discriminative beliefs. The mistreatment and discrimination of racial minorities and sex and gender minorities relate because, these people are not the majority, and for years people have put them in a box and mistreated them. These groups of people have both been denied basic rights, and even physically been mistreated. These people have both had to fight for their rights, and still do till this day. There are also mass killings of both of these minority groups. We can also see discrimination within the same racial or ethnic groups. Colorism is a big problem with people of color.
We can track mistreatment of minorities back to Native Americans being forced off their own land, or African Americans being forced into slavery, and later on suffering from Jim Crow laws. Slavery was a legal establishment that existed in the United States from 1619 to 1865. African Americans were brought to an unfamiliar place to do excessively hard work that became very familiar to them. This is where the discrimination of Africans/ African Americans began. They were brought here to unjustly work against there will, because they saw them as inferior. They mistreated them because they truly believed they were not real people, and that Caucasian people were the superior race. This was their mindset, and this is why they continued to discriminate against African Americans even after slavery was ended.
Jim crow laws were state and local laws that allowed segregation in the United states. They adopted the “separate but equal doctrine”. This was one of the most ultimate forms of discrimination. These laws were enacted after the reconstruction period till around 1966. These laws mandated segregation in schools, public places, transportation etc. White business owners were even able to pick if they wanted to serve people of color. They weren’t even allowed in certain towns after a certain time. They took away basic rights humans deserve, simply because they saw them as less than human. They lynched these individuals, and got away with taking away their lives in different ways. They were completely able to discriminate against African Americans in every way possible. Not allowing them to have basic human rights, or enjoy simple luxuries. They were the minority, they were completely outnumbered.
At one point, African Americans knew no better. It’s hard to fight back when you’re unfamiliar with where you are, and lack an education. White people did what they could to keep African Americans from overcoming. They wanted them to feel less that so that could continue to discriminate against them. It’s hard to do anything about it, when you’re outnumbered and don’t have an education. Completely brainwashing them in so many ways, that till this day we have colorism issues in the black community.
Another group that has suffered from lots of discrimination is the Native American community. They were on this land first, but quickly became outnumbered and became another minority group. The trail of tears was a sequence of forced moving from the south eastern part of the United States to the west. The white people wanted the land the Native Americans were originally on, and they felt like they deserved it. The white settlers felt entitled, because they saw the Native’s as unfamiliar people, or aliens. George Washington saw them as a “problem”, and that the way to fix it was to civilize them and convert them to Christianity. The problem with this is it is discrimination, simply because they believed that if they civilized them, the Native’s would be more like them. They wanted them to have European practices. White people mistreating the Natives just because they didn’t have the same customs and religion as them, and wanting them to conform to their way of life is pure discrimination.
Before the Civil war era, homosexuality was very taboo. You didn’t see it or hear about it. Because of their lack of knowledge during this time period, you were either male or female. There wasn’t extensive knowledge on gender minorities. You were also “suppose” to follow certain gender roles. You didn’t see much gender nonconformity. We now know in this time and age, sometimes there isn’t a clear black and white when it comes to sex and gender. It is not always either or, which is why we now have the LGBTQ community. But as always, when a few people act in such a way that isn’t the way the majority act, you have people who act in a hateful or discriminatory way towards them. Around 1783, which is the time the American Revolution ended, sodomy was a crime punishable by law.
In some states it was considered a capital offense. The word sodomy has different meanings, one of them is simply having non- procreative sex, or to have anal sex. These crimes were a felony punishable by imprisonment, or other forms of punishment. Cross dressing in certain places was also considered a felony. This is another example of a society wanting people to conform to one way of living, and going to extreme measures to make sure people follow what is “normal”. This is one way the discriminative nature of the way people treated sex and gender minorities and racial minorities are comparable. There sex and gender scale surpasses just heterosexual and cisgender individuals. There are homosexuals, transgenders, and even people who feel they were born into the wrong body. Another way people have discriminated against sex minorities, is that Homosexuality use to be considered a mental illness. This is the same way white people tried to justify mistreating people of color, to depict these people as something “wrong” or an “illness”.
Discrimination in today’s time, is better yet still a struggle. We have laws in place to protect all people, so that we are all treated equally. The United states has came a very long way, as far as equal rights go. Minorities can vote, and you are able to be serviced anywhere regardless of sexual orientation or gender. Racism, discrimination, and mistreatment of minorities is still a pressing issues in today’s time. We see it everywhere, in every setting. It may not be as open, sometimes its more subtle than blunt, but it shows up. There is a direct school to prison pipeline in our education system. it directly effects our minority children. The racism today is built into the system. Systematic racism and institutional racism is one of the biggest battles minorities face. Sex and gender minorities face institutional discrimination. Both groups face this through discriminatory policies and practices. Society favors one group of people, this thinking and way of life is embedded and deeply rooted in the structure.
One reason people use to discriminate against both of these groups is religious views. They use/ used religious views for justification of their ways. There are numerous references to slavery in the Bible which can be interpreted to condone this it. For instance, scriptural passages from the Old Testament books of Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy seemed to denounce slavery, but actually condemn enslavement only in certain circumstances rather than just slavery in general. physical or spiritual slavery, in the bible, is often a consequence of ones sinful actions. Darkness is associated with evil, which they would associate with people of color’s skin tone. The Africans were subsequently considered heathens. Because of the emergence of colonies in the Americas and the fact that they needed to find laborers, Europeans used that to argue that the Transatlantic Slave Trade would allow Africans, to come into contact with Christianity and become civilized, as a result of coming to the Americas.
Also, they would even argue that the favorable trade winds that pushed them from Africa to the Americas were evidence of this. Religion was also a main driving force during slavery in the Americas. In a way, religion got in the way of making money and wasting time by taking the slaves away from their work. It also taught them conceivably subversive ideas and made it hard to justify the wrong doing of the “Christians” slave owners. Moreover, some people tried to advance the idea that it was doable to be a good slave and Christian and pointed to St Paul’s epistles, which called for slaves to obey their masters. St Peter’s letters, which appeared to suggest that it was admirable and meritorious for Christian slaves to take suffering from their master.
Just like racial minorities, sex and gender minorities receive slander and discrimination from people, and they use religious reasons to target them, and justify what they’re doing. In Today’s time homosexuals are a lot of the time a target of religious people, religious communities etc. whose members more often than not quote scripture to justify or condemn anti-gay bias, discrimination and sometimes, the most extreme which is violence . since the past decade or so, the LGBQT community has made extravagant legal and political progress in the U.S. , such as same sex marriage. Despite this progress, federal law doesn’t exactly prohibit or help against discrimination positioned on sexual orientation and gender identity in places like housing, employment and access to services, less than half of the states offer explicit protections for the LGBT community at the state level. Without these protections, LGBQT people across the U.S. lack clear recourse and redress when they are fired, evicted, or refused services for no other reason than simply because of their gender identity or sexual orientation.
Another common way people discriminate against these two minority groups is using fire arms. Theres a very common history of violence against these group. Harming innocent people, in large groups or in singles. We see this in police brutality, especially amongst African Americans. We see large groups of sex and gender minorities being targeted at as well. This is called a hate crime. A hate crime is the victimization of an individual or individuals due to their race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, gender, gender identity and/or disability. These brutal actions could be because of cultural, religious, and or political reasons.
