But sometimes there are reasons people discriminate. I think it's built into us for self preservation purposes. Here's an example of why someone might react a certain way because of a learned response. So if you slap me often enough, I'm gonna duck the next time I see you raise your hand. Or if (and this happened to my family) you are crashed into by a car that doesn't stop at a stop sign, then every time after that for a long time, you are probably going to hit the brakes or your heart beats a little faster if you think someone isn't going to stop. Why do we hit the brakes before we check the speedometor when we see a police car approaching? If I have been badly abused by someone with pink hair, I'm probably going to be leary of a pink haired person. So at the bank, after a few embarrassing situations by men in suits, white shirts and ties and carrying a brief case, I learned to be leary of those types until I got to know them. Also ladies dressed to the hilt with diamonds dripping from their body parts and obviously moneyed, I again learned to be leary of the power with which they tried to hit me. I worked in a bank so had to serve without obvious discrimination but even though I knew how to not mistreat people because of this or that, it didn't mean I didn't want to smack them or be mean to them at times. Isn't that discrimination too? Or is it only when it's a verb, when I actually do something active?
OK, another thought----Is it possible people of color or whatever reason, tend to also think they are discriminated against because of that color. FOR Instance:::: we have a tenant who is of African American descent. They are about 75, neat, clean, educated, business people, polite, kind, honest, religious, and gentle folk. They have rented from us about a year and a half now. I like them very much except for one thing. There have been three, 3, THREE, situations now where the husband has hinted that they were mistreated because of their color.
One was where a window repair company had sent two young men about 18-19, (summer help)over to do some very minor repair on 1 window. Mr. Tenant said that when the young men saw that it was a black lady that came to the door, they just said, "Hi, we're here to fix the window." I asked him what was wrong with that. He said he could tell they didn't like her by the way they looked at her when they saw she was black. I asked him if they were polite and did they thank her when they left. "Yes, but I knew. So when you talk to that company, please let them know how they treated my wife." And yes, I did mention it to the company but when I found out that the two guys were young kids with no experience. I decided they were scared to death so weren't going to get all chatty like I would.
Then we sent a guy over to fix the garage door when Mr. Tenant ran into it. He paid the bill but Pete overheard him arguing with the fixit guy and he said he was charging too much and he saw now why Mr. Fixit thought he could overcharge because he was a friend of ours. Then he said to the guy's face that he was overcharging because they were black. It's a good thing our friend was a Christian because I think he might have whacked Mr. Tenant for what he said. In the meantime Pete is out there wanting to evict the guy for being mean to our friend. The thing that makes us so mad too is that Mr. Fixit has gone over to twice now for FREE, once to change the lightbulb, and once to adjust the door, and hurried right over because he knew they were old people who probably couldn't open and close the door manually or climb the ladder to get to the bulb. GRRR!!!
Then, we have been having trouble with him because even though he pays his rent well and on time, he is behind in reembursing us for the water bill. So I've been putting on his statement that the rent is a "partial payment". He doesn't like that so the other day I wrote him a very factual letter reitterating the fact that we have OUT OF THE GOODNESS OF OUR HEARTS (and never charged them) installed handicap pull bar by the tub and another handrail going down the stairs so now there's two, a handrail on both entry porches when it wasn't required by law, finished off a room in the basement so he could use it for an office, we put up curtains over the patio door because they coudn't get on a ladder, Pete installed their two AC units because the old guy couldn't lift them, and put plastic twice over the patio door at the beginning of winter so it stayed warmer in there. Oh and put in a new front door because we couldn't get it to be airtight. Well he called and complained that I was rubbing their noses in this stuff and said that I wouldn't have sent the letter if they weren't old and black. He said that they deserved all the handicap stuff because they were 75. Fortunately, Pete was gulping so hard that he kept his temper and the guy quickly said, "goodby" so even if Pete wanted to verbally smack him, he wouldn't have had time. I'm afraid that now, when he wants a favor, we might not take so kindly to doing it.