Discrimination

[Martin Hash]

I have no personal experience with racial discrimination. I’ve read about discrimination, seen it in the media, heard stories about it, but the only time I have brushed against anything other than the normal course of social preferences and shunning has been my own - and it seems like I’ve gotten way more than my fair share of rejection. With a name like “Hash,” the IRS, bank managers, and U.S. Customs automatically get suspicious.

I can see why people think they are being discriminated against – I often feel the same way. I think referees are biased – and waiters. Certainly, when I go fishing, those little buggers are discriminating against me. Discrimination is everywhere – if you are looking for it. A lot of what people think is discrimination is part discourtesy, part self-interest, but mostly a sense of persecution. I can only speak of my own knowledge here in modern times – but if history is to be believed, every immigrant wave into America has had a serious headwind of discrimination – undeniably, the real thing. So somewhere in the mix of fact and imagining, past and present, victimhood, class struggle, politics, and all the rest of the reasons people believe the things they do, is “discrimination.”