The Definition of Racial Discrimination

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2. DISCRIMINATION

2.1 The Definition of Racial Discrimination

The definition of discrimination is the act of prejudice against a person because they have a certain set of characteristics. Discriminated characteristics ca include disability, age, gender reassignment, religion, race, sex and sexual orientation. Discrimination can take many forms but in many countries around the world there are laws prohibiting any form of discrimination. In the United States, employment laws are very strict regarding discrimination and the laws serve to protect individuals from being discriminated in the workplace. The laws also serve to guide employers on acceptable conduct for its employees with regards to discrimination. Racial discrimination refers to unequal treatment of persons or group on the basis of their race or ethnicity. Many scholars and legal advocates distinguish between differential treatment and disparate impact, differential treatment occurs when individuals are treated unequally because of their race. Races are distinguished from one another by such characteristics as hair color and texture, skin color, eye color and shape, size of body parts, and facial organs. According to Sacknel 2003:2 “Race is a concept that signifies and symbolizes social conflicts and interests by referring types of human bodies. It is a socio historical process, by which racial categories are created, inhabited, transformed, and destroyed.” Universitas Sumatera Utara 7 Racial prejudice is an insidious moral and social disease affecting people all over the world. Initially this is referred to making a judgment about a person based on superficial characteristics, before receiving information relevant to the particular issue on which a judgement was being made. Racial prejudice perverts this uniqueness of the races and takes the view that these differences separate individuals further into groups, with one group inferior to the other. Discrimination prejudice are very much telated, because prejudices always construct a rationalization of discrimination, while discrimination brings thr threats of attitude to justify the prejudice N.Daldjoeni, 1991:85. Racial discrimination or racism is the belief that race is the primary determinant of human qualities and capacities and those racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race. As a result, mistreatment of a group people on the basis of race, color, and religion are often found in the name superiority. The statement above also supported by Bowling 2002:21 that stated “Racism is the belief that certain group are innately, biologically, socially morally superior to other groups, based upon what is attributed to be their racial composition.” Most of the countries in the word consist of various races. Those various races can be a big power for those countries if the people can accept the varieties which exist among them because they have skills to increase their life and their country. On the other hand, it also can cause a big problem if they cannot regard one to another. This condition happened in America which had various races. The white people created a new kind of understanding and interpretation of human Universitas Sumatera Utara 8 difference that gave bad effect and sufferings towards black people. White people cannot accept the existence of black people, as consequence they never treat black people as the true human beings due to the different types of physical characteristics. The black people always become the victim of white people bad treatments.

2.2 Types of Discrimination