Everybody discriminates even if they don't know it or think about it when they are doing it.We certainly didn't think about it much when we were growing up.Sometimes discrimination is a good thing.My parents certainly thought so.Much of our childhood was all about learning to discern good things from bad things,and good people from those who were not so good.And in this we had my parents constant guidance."Try to stay away from those who are mean,or like to fight,or do break and enters or don't respect authority.Hang out with kids from the church,or people we know,or kids who are kind and intelligent.That policeman's kids are alright,but stay away from that unwed mothers child.Nothing good can come of that"
My parents were good judges of character,so they taught me fairly well how to discriminate.But not all discrimination is good.Mostly I've learned to think of it as a bad thing.Often it was.When I was growing up there were very few visible minorities in our town.Town was divided though,.Right down the middle between Anglophones and FrancophonesAll the kids I played with as a pre- schooler looked pretty much like me.That is to say,they were white.And I didn't really care when they spoke a language I couldn't understand.We were very accepting at that age.When we all went off to school,some of the children went to the French school,while we went to the English school.But some of the children at our school were French too.I'm not certain why they didn't go to French school.Maybe their parents thought that it would be a good idea for them to learn English at school and French at home.
When I first saw how some of these children were being discriminated,it wasn't really obvious to me what was happening.I've thought about it many times in the years since though,how that teacher really didn't treat those children right.We were playing at recess when one of the kids said something in French to another kid,who answered,also in French.There was a teacher standing nearby and she immediately came running over,as though there was a fight going on,and scolded the child speaking French saying that he could not speak French,as not all of the children could understand what he was saying.Why,I wondered were two French boys not allowed to have a private conversation between themselves.Children told secrets all the time and that never seemed to be any business of the teachers.But,because I spoke English,the whole incident made me feel somewhat superior to these other children,without realizing that this was unjustified,or without even understanding why.All I knew was that there was a somewhat favored status attached to being English among the teachers we were expected to respect.It took many years for me to unlearn this lesson.
My parents were good judges of character,so they taught me fairly well how to discriminate.But not all discrimination is good.Mostly I've learned to think of it as a bad thing.Often it was.When I was growing up there were very few visible minorities in our town.Town was divided though,.Right down the middle between Anglophones and FrancophonesAll the kids I played with as a pre- schooler looked pretty much like me.That is to say,they were white.And I didn't really care when they spoke a language I couldn't understand.We were very accepting at that age.When we all went off to school,some of the children went to the French school,while we went to the English school.But some of the children at our school were French too.I'm not certain why they didn't go to French school.Maybe their parents thought that it would be a good idea for them to learn English at school and French at home.
When I first saw how some of these children were being discriminated,it wasn't really obvious to me what was happening.I've thought about it many times in the years since though,how that teacher really didn't treat those children right.We were playing at recess when one of the kids said something in French to another kid,who answered,also in French.There was a teacher standing nearby and she immediately came running over,as though there was a fight going on,and scolded the child speaking French saying that he could not speak French,as not all of the children could understand what he was saying.Why,I wondered were two French boys not allowed to have a private conversation between themselves.Children told secrets all the time and that never seemed to be any business of the teachers.But,because I spoke English,the whole incident made me feel somewhat superior to these other children,without realizing that this was unjustified,or without even understanding why.All I knew was that there was a somewhat favored status attached to being English among the teachers we were expected to respect.It took many years for me to unlearn this lesson.
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