Racial Discrimination In Society

“If you judge people you have no time to love them.” A very meaningful line stated by Mother Theresa describing about how a person judge another easily. In our society today, almost all human beings tend to be very judgmental. It is like a natural habit for all of us. The prejudgement of a person base on how they look, how they act, or even how they smell can be considered as discrimination. Discrimination is an issue that everyone has concerns about; whether it may be age, race, class, religion, gender or culture. However, although there are many forms of discrimination, there is a large amount of people that is discriminated because of racism. According to Merriam – Webster’s dictionary, racial discrimination is defined as the practice

They say that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, yet men, women, and children of all orientations, races, ethnicities and backgrounds are subject to unjust discrimination in every day of their lives. There are many different ways people can discriminate against others, it can be as simple as a person utter harmless jokes and hoaxes about certain ethnic or racial groups or making fun of a person or mimicking them because they speak English with a different. Racism can have a lot of effects on a victim. According to Cornell News Service study (2009), racial discrimination erodes mental health. The study finds that black people may have poorer mental health as a result of two mechanisms: Firstly; chronic exposure to racial discrimination leads to more experiences of daily discrimination and secondly it results in an accumulation of daily negative events across various domains of life, from family, friends, health and finances. As stated by an online research, “A person’s whole world can change from experiencing discrimination and they can become depressed, anxious and mentally unwell. People who experienced the most racism also recorded the most severe psychological distress scores and more than 70% worried at least a few times a month that their family and friends would be victims of racism.” (VicHealth, 2009). In, addition,

It causes tremendous moral, cultural, and economic suffering to a country. This can happen in government agencies, organizations and corporations that create public essential services like health care, education and housing. For example, as stated by Dr. Poussaint, a well-known author, psychiatrist and educator of America, “Blacks that visited health care facilities were not given the same quality of care as whites. Some black patients were allowed to die, children were neglected, and women often had their babies in trucks on the side of the road.” An online journal says, “Black people usually have less access to and are less likely to receive needed care, and the care they ultimately receive is often of poor quality. (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2001, p.4). The report also stated that “disparities also stem from minorities’ historical and present struggles with racism and discrimination, which affect their mental health and contribute to their lower economic, social, and political status (The Counselling Psychologist, Vol. 35 No. 1, January 2007). There are certain things that some people cannot do, simply because their personal characteristic that is associated with their race prevents them from being able to do them. Therefore, racism prevents people from having equal opportunities to a better