“Ramirez, Robles, Rodriguez, Romanowski….” In my seventh-grade class at Harden Middle School in Salinas, Calif., I’d cringe at the sound of my eastern-European last name during roll call, as if it was a nail on a chalkboard. Even though no one else may have noticed the difference, I did.
Flash-forward to the first time I walked into the Disabled Student Services office at Cal State Long Beach in 2005. After being diagnosed with a mood disorder, I could feel the eyes of the other students in Brotman Hall staring at me, as if the word bipolar were branded on my forehead. I thought I was the odd-man out and not normal, again.
Webster’s Dictionary defines discrimination as “a prejudiced or prejudicial outlook, action or treatment,” and in these situations no one had displayed any such thought or action toward me. However, I had discriminated against myself.
Commonly considered a danger to others as we distinguish one another based on false pretenses, discrimination ultimately results in the marginalization of certain individuals or populations. Whether it be contrasts in race, sexual preference, religion or more shallow subtleties in appearance, it seems to be human nature to size each other up and figure out our (and everyone else’s) place in society.
What’s less popular is turning the mirror onto ourselves and the self-discrimination that takes place when we label ourselves. In today’s globalized society, races are mixing, national identities are becoming a conglomerate of personal experiences, sexuality is less taboo than ever and religious differences – in America at least – are subsiding as faith becomes more individually based and less of a daily activity.
Not to say that there is no racism, violent acts against various minority populations or a lack of global religious crises. Just call the ACLU or Amnesty International and they’ll give you proof that discrimination is, in fact, alive and well. The argument is that discrimination has begun to gently subside.
Throughout my life the biggest “prejudicial outlook, action or treatment” has been solely based on my own perceptions of self. Growing up in a semi-rural Hispanic population in central California, I saw the differences between myself and my fellow classmates.
Still, I never treated them differently. Instead I altered my own behavior. These minimal outside inflections were as trivial as darker makeup, baggy pants and a roll of the tongue when ordering a burrito.
The more significant alterations were internal. This internal conflict progressed from “they won’t like me,” to “they hate me because I’m a blonde, blue-eyed white girl.” To this day I can’t recall any legitimate manifestations that would instill these thoughts. But it didn’t matter because I had already taken myself out of the game.
Today, I try to go Gandhi with the concept and “be the change” I wish to see in the world. How else will we ever stop marginalizing others if our self-perception and personal treatment is out of whack?
Discrimination starts with self. I am a female, disabled American of mixed Latin American and European decent and grateful to have been alive during a time in which no one has felt the need to act negatively because of these distinctions. Many people have been less fortunate.
If no one has discriminated against me, then why should I? Instead I choose to accept myself, because only then can I truly accept everyone else.
Cynthia Romanowski is a senior journalism major and an assistant news editor for the Daily Forty-Niner.
