After all, death discriminates against no one.

I suppose I'll follow the trend here and give a bit of background info about myself, and my status, before we get started with my thoughts on this week's topic.  I'm white, and... well, I think that my family is upper-middle class.  I'm really not sure, to be honest, because I have a lot of conflicting things in that respect.  For lack of a better solution, though, I'm just going to go with that.

Anti-discrimination laws are something that I find fairly difficult to discuss, because I find it pretty hard to track the impact that they have (or the extent to which they're followed).  Most of my experience with these laws are going to come from my job, as I've dealt with the hiring (and firing, sometimes) of new employees for the last 6+ years.  I'm not sure if I'll be able to come up with any thoughts outside of that particular box, but I'll try, at least.

Equal opportunity.  I really didn't understand the impact that those two words had until I started doing interviews and hiring people to work.  For anyone unfamiliar, being an "equal opportunity employer" mandates that you don't discriminate for or against applicants based on any non-essential traits that may exist (race, gender, orientation, etc).  What does this mean for employers?  Essentially, it means that you take the necessary steps to ensure you're following those rules and protecting yourself.  My place of employment has a very structured interview guide, and several of the questions on it are ridiculous.  Nonetheless, I use that guide with every single person that I interview.  Why?  Because having that constant is the first step in providing equal opportunity.  If you're asking every applicant the same questions, then there's no favoritism, no "free rides"... the decision is (or should be, anyway) based off of the applicant's answers to the questions. I once had an applicant threaten me with a lawsuit, because I hired another person over them - they claimed that I was discriminating against them, based on their race.  I invited them to do so, and nothing came of it.  In that respect, I would have been able to prove that I was following the law, and within that scope, I think that the laws do a fantastic job of ensuring equal opportunity - when they're followed.  Compliance is something that each individual has to take ownership of, and I feel comfortable in saying that it's not a priority for a lot of people.  I don't see an effective way to change this, however, without instituting some regular review of the hiring processes for every company in existence.  That's not likely to happen.

I've never really run into any issues with employees complaining about not getting opportunities, either - not based on anything discriminatory-wise, anyway.  I've trained a lot of employees, and I've promoted a lot of employees, and there have been members of multiple races within that group.  Again, I think it's entirely possible that there are some people out there who give more opportunities to people based on factors that they shouldn't, and I agree that it's wrong - but I don't see a way we can effectively monitor that sort of thing and stop it (proactively, anyway).

What groups should be protected by anti-discriminatory laws?  All of them.  In my opinion, discrimination is most commonly thought of as white people discriminating against other races.  That may be true in some cases - but not all of them.  The truth of the matter is that everyone has the potential to discriminate against everyone else, whether they're a different race or not.  I was discriminated against in the 11th grade by my Marketing teacher, because I steadfastly refused to join DECA (an international association of marketing enthusiasts, students, whatever).  I was the only member of the class not to join, and so I kept the teacher from hitting the 100% enrollment mark that she so desired - and so I was discriminated against.  My completed assignments were marked down for no reason, I was forced to stay after class just to use the shared printer... that class was absolute hell for me.  Did I deserve to be discriminated against?  Not at all.  Would bringing it to the attention of the authorities (the principal, school board, somebody) have helped?  Maybe, maybe not.  My point is that everyone is susceptible to discrimination, and everyone is capable of discriminating.  It's up to each person to determine how they'll act (or react) in any situation.

I got kind of off-topic with that, and I apologize for that.  My thoughts, basically, are that anti-discrimination is a thing that everyone in the world should embrace and practice.  Do I think it will happen?  No.  I also don't think that laws can be but so effective in making it happen.  I briefly considered whether an extreme law might help  - for example, stranding a diverse group of people on an island for a month, and forcing them to try to work together to survive.  But realistically, I think that would end in bloodshed and tribal wars.  Discrimination is an unfortunate part of the world, and everyone would be better off if it didn't exist.  If you have any fantastic ideas about how to end it, write your local congressman or senator.

Random thought for (hopeful) comments - if I attempted to start a cable TV channel based around white music and entertainment and was denied, would I have a case for discrimination, given that such channels exist for other races?