Just the other day a friend and I were talking about the comparison between racial discrimination and sexual orientation discrimination. While we were talking an idea popped into my head: discrimination against a gay person doesn’t often happen right away, it occurs over time; whereas, black people and other racial minorities are often discriminated against from the beginning.
Say you have two people who are interviewed for a job: a heterosexual African-American male and a gay Anglo-American (that’s white, non-Hispanic, non-Jewish, non-Native American) male. Now, let’s say the interviewer is prejudiced against both black people and gay people. As soon as the black man walks through the door, he’s got one strike against him with the interviewer. Now the white guy walks through the door. We know he’s gay, but he’s also very masculine, so the interviewer doesn’t realize he’s gay. It’s also considered inappropriate in most interview situations to ask about family and other personal subjects.
When the gay white guy gets the job, he doesn’t come out right away to his coworkers. Over time he starts to talk more and more about dating or his partner or going out to certain clubs or attending a certain church, but only to certain coworkers. As time goes by, all of his coworkers learn he is gay and some of them pull away from him because they don’t like gay people and don’t “approve” of homosexuality. Through the complex world of office politics, the “anti-gays” put pressure on the others until the gay employee is isolated and ostracized. Eventually he quits or is fired because his performance drops.
Now both the black guy and the gay guy have been discriminated against, it only took a little longer before the gay guy “got his.” The black guy never even got his foot in the door. The gay guy got in the door, but was shoved back out a little while later.
Some may argue that at least the gay guy was given the opportunity to prove himself. Others may point out that, due to the preconceived notions of his coworkers, he may have gotten to work but there was nothing he could do to prove himself. And a few may even point out that at least the black guy didn’t get fooled into thinking he stood a chance, so he didn’t waste his time in a business that wouldn’t have welcomed him.
What do you think? Is one form of discrimination “better” than another? Is it okay since the discrimination doesn’t surface until later? For me, it doesn’t matter: discrimination is discrimination no matter where it falls in a timeline.
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