We now know we live in a country where we can move past the color of a person’s skin – the external result – and engage with the real person inside.
This week, as it would happen, in Study Hall, we are discussing the relationship between results and self-esteem. Imagine how it feels to be discriminated against because of a result over which you have no control.
What kind of impact could that have on self-esteem? Most likely, without role models and / or instruction about how to move beyond the prejudice, self-esteem would suffer.
We have all been the victims of discrimination. All woman certainly as a group and perhaps most as individuals. All people of color and physically visible ethnicity who live in places where they are not the “norm.”
In family settings, one family member is different and / or doesn’t get along with another, so the children may be treated differently – not unlike Cinderella in relationship to her stepsisters. You get the idea.
The real place of power is in our relationship to discrimination: inside ourselves. Where have you discriminated against yourself because you deemed an external result as insufficient? Have you experienced obvious or subtle discrimination because of something external? Your skin color, your country of origin, your sexual orientation, your gender, your place of birth, where you live, your job or even the car you drive?