Victimizing Yourself?

Sunday, June 5, 2016





Dr. Martin Luther King understood it very well and so did Mahatma Gandhi. Barak Obama understands it too. Many more do so but are not famous and thus we will never hear of them: people who knew/know that fighting discrimination is senseless. This surely does not mean they are not against discrimination at all. They just ‘know’ how to play the game.

I know first-hand that the harder you fight against discrimination, the more you will become a victim. Just look at yourself: if you jokingly comment on the way a person looks or dresses or behaves and the object of your choice reacts furiously it only is fuel for you and you will go on teasing. I guess this is just our human nature. As long as it goes with tongue in cheek both parties will understand and no harm is done. And let’s face it; we all discriminate. Because no 2 people in this world are the same. There are so many differences between all of us. Once I heard an older woman saying “If there are 5 billion people in this world it means that there are 5 billion different worlds on this planet”. How right she was! 
Here is a definition of the discrimination that I found on the net: verb (used with object), discriminated, discriminating: To make or constitute a distinction in or between; differentiate. Discrimination  So there is no need to argue about this. But let us see what discrimination means in our society.

Every day many people feel discriminated and more than likely in most cases they are right. Being gay myself, I know what it is and believe me when I say that it hurts often. The point is; why do we allow ourselves to get hurt? Would it not be easier to shrug our shoulders and go on with our own lives instead of fighting? For sure the one who is discriminated will never win the fight. We’ll only get hurt even more and become frustrated. That then leads us into uncomfortable situations so the frustration only builds up leaving us unhappy. Wouldn’t you agree that this a pitiful situation? Please let me make myself clear. We should never tolerate it when people are looking down on us because of our skin color, sex, (none) religion, race or sexual preference. But I prefer other ways to make my point. Using arguments for one. Or by explaining why some comments are painful. Through the years I have noticed that most people are open to it. The same people that would not have understood, had I responded in an aggressive way. Just because of the fact that as soon as we attack people they turn in their defend mode. As we all would do by the way. This will not bring us any further. Instead, the gap will only get bigger. 

Think of the fact why King and Gandhi were so successful. They never attacked their opponents in a violent way. Did Nelson Mandela ever publicly attack the white minority in South Africa after he got out of jail? No, he had chosen to use arguments. And no, he was not bowing for oppression, nor did he always agree with great nations. He made his ideas very clear but in a much more friendly way than before he went to prison. (When Mandela received an honorary degree from the University of Leiden in the Netherlands I watched him after he left. This man had so much charisma that I got tears in my eyes. Not from crying. It was pure his charisma. More people had the same experience)

Discrimination and being discriminated against can easily lead us to hate. But that is definitely not the answer. In my opinion, we should stop feeling like we’re always being discriminated against. In the Netherlands, the gay community demonstrated a lot for equal rights. The gay society than did something brilliant: instead of being a victim when people called us ‘faggots, queers’ etc. we started to use those names ourselves. The opponents now had no more names to call us since we used their abuses and showed them we were proud of it! We had simply ‘disarmed’ them! That was much more satisfying than an aggressive response. Discrimination will never stop. You can just forget about that. The way we deal with it is in our own hands. 

To close: I don’t care if people look down on me because those are the people I definitely do not want to look up against. 

Love the ones you’re with and be loved in return.