When was the last time you were discriminated against for your race sexuality or gender?

I thought it would be interesting to hear some stories of discrimination members have suffered due to their race gender or sexuality.

As a white straight male. I can not recall a time when I have been discriminated against in any walk of life. Maybe it has happened and I've not been aware of it, but as far as I can remember, I have never been discriminated against.

I have been discriminated against in the work place before.

I was called in for an interview for a job. At the interview I found out that It was part time and the pay sucked. So, I told the interviewers I was sorry to waste their time, I needed something full time. They then went on to their computer to look for any full time positions and they found one. It was full time and it was the highest they were allowed to pay a new employee. So, I'm grinning ear to ear.

A few weeks later, I'm working a long and one of the college kids comes up to me and he starts Bs'ing with me. All's fine until he brings up his position and his pay. Now, he told me what he he started out at (he started about two weeks after me) and I left it at that. I was pissed. He was making 20 cents more an hour. Now, that may not seem a lot, but when you're the father of two, and you were assured that you were being hired at the highest possible wage allowed... that's kind of 'stupid'.

Come to find out, the girl I was working along side with was making a dollar more an hour than me. Actually, most everybody at the same "job level" with the same amount of time in or even less, were getting paid more than me :/

So yeah, I am a white male, and I was discriminated against because I wasn't a female or a college student.

I've been denied a few jobs because of race and gender.

Most recently: I went in to apply for a job at a local bar that I saw on craigslist. When I went in, the guy told me that they weren't hiring. The very next day, the same bar posted an updated ad saying, "Looking for a female bartender". Upon visiting this bar with friends, the bartenders were slow, they had bad form, and they made mediocre drinks at best.

I'm a white male.

Buying car insurance.

I'm male, so I'm therefore instantly discriminated against.

As it happens, in Europe there is now no discrimination. How do you that $$$$ equality, women?

reply to post by woodwardjnr


I do not believe that I have ever been discriminated against on any one of those data points. I suppose you could argue that because I am male, lesbians discriminate against me when selecting potential sexual partners, but thats a whole can of worms that doesnt need opening really.

However, I have been discriminated against on other data points. I have, at times, been discriminated against because I enjoy thinking, learning, knowing, using my mind to do more than simply fire the neurons required to keep my heart beating, my lungs exchanging oxygen for carbon dioxide, and my other various bodily processes moving as they ought to. For most of my early years, those of my age group made my life miserable, because when they were all obsessing over the newest moron to be signed to a football club, and staying up to watch international matches, I was making sure to set the VCR to record The Sky At Night, or the latest Horizon special on one or another interesting bit of science and technology news, and making sure to keep up with Star Trek The Next Generation episodes.

When in class as a young boy, I was initially interested in learning, wanted as much data as I could lay hands on. When I was five I was asking questions that were flummoxing my teachers, and attracting all the wrong attention from others, while the other children in the class were planning who to squeeze some lunch money out of later on, and generally being abusive little gits to one another.

Because of this difference, I was ridiculed, assaulted regularly to varying degrees of severity. As I developed personal tastes for music, further differences became apparant in that while I had a preference for soaring guitars, heavy drums, and frantic, passionate vocals, others became obsessed with the typical music of the period, the terrible nonsense that used to appear on Top of The Pops between 1990, and the end of its production, which was, with only the rarest of exceptions, utter dross at best (Spice Girls, N-sync, Oxide and Neutrino, various speed garage crap and so on).

I never had a peer group during my school days as a result. I was a pariah, not a loner, merely alone.

More recently I have been discriminated against because of my age, most often by customers in our store who believe that my relative youth (I am twenty eight years old for Gods sake) means that I am incapable of understanding the English language, let alone successfully completing a task which I am set, nor indeed having the slightest knowledge when compared to thier own, on any given subject, including locksmithing, which is my profession and has been since 2005. I am also discriminated against, because I have long hair, a beard, and tattoos which apparantly makes me a villanous cad, one whom upon spying coming the other way on the street, any reasonable person would cross over to avoid, despite heavy traffic.

Race, religion, colour, nationality, its true that people discriminate over all these issues, and they are the issues that often make he news for one reason or another. However, discrimination happens where ever there is a difference between one person, and a percieved majority of other people, no matter how apparantly slight that difference might be.

I will be going to a heavy metal festival early next month, at which thier is a stage, called the Sophie stage. It was named thusly, because of an incident details of which I have provided a link to.

en.wikipedia.org...

From the various reportage on this subject at the time of her death, it was pretty clear that the motive for the attack can be boiled down to "because they were moshers". There is far more to it than nationality and colour, sexuality or gender bias. People will hate anything they do not understand, given virtually no provocation.

As an Australian Aboriginal with very dark skin I have lived in Sydney most of life without much harassment of any kind. However 2 years ago I moved state from NSW to WA and relocated to a small ocean side town called Geraldton.

The people in the town are cool but one night when my flat mate was a having one of his all-night parties I decided to book into a local hotel called The Abrolos Reef Hotel. At the time I still had a NSW license, which is a state 3000km away, and it still had my former NSW address on it.

So at 10:30pm I rang the hotel to make a reservation. When the receptionist answered the phone I asked if there were any available rooms and if it was ok to check-in in about 30minutes. They said yes, and so I rang a cab and arrived 30 minutes later.

When I arrived at reception the receptionist looked at me and apologised immediately and said "I'm sorry but we don't accept locals in this hotel."
I thought she must've confused for someone else and I said "I'm not a local, I'm the guy who rang 30 minutes ago and booked a room." Then I told her my name and showed her my license, with my former address on it. Without even looking at my NSW license, she slid it back across the counter to me and said again "I'm sorry but we don't take locals."

Just then her husband also walks in and wanted to know what the trouble was and I explained to him that I booked a room blah blah blah, I'm not a local, my license says im from Sydney so what's the story?

Whoa talk about going on the immediate defensive, this guy slams his hand down on the counter and says "Buddy we told you we don't take locals so if you don't leave now, we'll call the police."

Well just in case your not up to speed with the Australian Aboriginal and Australian Police relationship, well you've got a better chance of finding peace in The Middle East before our two groups start drinking together, needless to say I got outta there.

I had to walk into town and get a taxi and you guessed it, I had at least 3 cop cars stop me and question me.

Once I had found work at local Iron Ore site, I decided to move to Geraldton permananetly, and since then I have had NO PROBLEMS of any type of discrimination.

The hotel incident was a one-off type incident, but I make sure I tell all The Relations about it, to save themselves an unwanted visit from the cops.

reply to post by woodwardjnr


I have six sisters and a wife: gender discrimination is constant.

I'm a white, straight male.

A few years ago, I went to a co-worker's wedding. She's black. We were at the wedding (and about the only white folks there...I've always lived with people from different cultures, so I'm pretty color-blind), then they went to do pics. We went ahead and headed to the reception area (it was on the same property). When we got there, there weren't many others there, just a few folks. We put our gift on the gift table, and looked around. We had a lot of weird stares, before someone approached us and asked if we were in the right place. We assured them we were (very politely, gave our names, and as friends and guests of the bride). She kind of believed us, but over the next 15 minutes or so, we were approached at least 3 other times about it....hehe.... We just kind of brushed it off, no big deal (no reason to make a scene or anything, or let it tarnish the day), but yeah, it was a little taste of feeling out of place, and undesired. Luckily, we had a good time still, some good food, and congratulated the couple, etc. So all's well that ends well. (and we did get a lot of apologies once it was clear we were guests....)

The last time I was discriminated against was someone making fun of me because I come from a multiracial background. This wasn't the first time and I have experienced it from different types of people. They all say the same bull. "Your blood is impure; you're a mongrel; You're a half breed; You should only reproduce with girls who are mixed like yourself; etc."

I cannot believe there are people who are ignorant about genetics. To me it's not color, race, ethnicity, or whatever. It's character and respect. We really need to start showing ourselves and others with respect.

Would have to say the last time would fall under "marital discrimination" against women thought it is not protected by law. I had found a great job advancement but they were weary about hiring me, even questioned me about having children in the near future, because I was "newly married". I believe that is a discrimination, similar to appearance of oneself, that is rarely addressed or considered as being discrimination. Other cases employment wise, I had to deal with sentiment similar to "women don't do this job(etc.,)" by male employees, while working temp jobs etc. Guess it didn't bother me that much being a gamer and on the internet so long, it was a pretty common thing to hear. Also, that there was a job I had applied for, lucky did not get hired for, because shortly after the corporation was sued, and shut down for paying women well under what they have paid men, they were also involved in violating child labor laws as well, happened until the mid 2000s. Race wise,would have to say growing up in an ethnically diverse area, while being raised to be mindful and very considerate to others, I was not treated the same. Not only I was regularly remarked on and teased for being very pale, but also by people who were pale,just not as much, ahem... Apparently if you are a Redhead you are the shining example of being able to tan your skin naturally.

When I weighed over 450lbs, i was discriminated very frequently. I can tell you the obvious differences in being fat vs not being fat as it relates to the way the world recieves you.

I have been passed over for a job because I wasn't Canadian. Our client perceived the Canadian workforce to be more skilled (rightfully so), and told the company that they didn't want an American in the position on their account, but rather a Canadian. Living in Texas, I never thought THAT would happen.

I have been passed over because of where I come from. The stereotype of a West Texas piece of oilfield trash is certainly not me. Despite my obvious lacking in conforming to that stereotype, the perception a NY client had of our location dictated me not getting a position. Strangely, I moved to Laramie, WY. Reapplied for a similar position on the account, and got it. Wasn't who i was, but where I was from.

I was referred to an antique dealer as someone who could design and build a crate to ship a very expensive chandelier.
The two owners of the antique shop were a middle aged gay couple.
I'm a pretty well dressed, in shape, straight male. They were very friendly at first and I made their crate, it functioned perfectly, all was well.

They called me back to look at another chandelier and while I was there they started asking what bars I went to, was I single, and other personal questions. At the time I didn't realize it but they were trying to gauge my sexuality.

When I told them I had a girlfriend the energy in the room changed noticeably.
I took the specs on the chandelier and called them the next day with a price. They said "we'll let you know".
I never heard from them again.

I was talking with another client on the same street one day and they told me the couple in question prefers to do business with gays and it all made sense why they never called me back.