by Megan O'Brian

Created on: October 09, 2009   Last Updated: October 11, 2009

Discrimination annd prejudice has been around since the beginning of time and humans being human, the practice of discrimination will never disappear.

Wherever a group of people gather and live, there will always be some who think that they are superior to others and whether it's based on religion, age, gender or ethnic background, all of us at some time in our lives have been faced with discrimination of some sort.

Older people have a harder time finding jobs (even though age discrimination is supposedly banned), women have had a harder time achieving success in high profile jobs because those jobs have been primarily considered to be "for men only" and people of different ethnic backgrounds have faced problems finding jobs or places to live based solely on their ethnicity

We know that people have fought and killed each other over religious and ethnic differences long before the birth of Christ but with the passage of time and a better understanding of each other as a people, discrimination, though not gone, has lessened dramatically in America.

Minority groups in particular have achieved a lot despite what we read in the newspapers or see on TV. People of different ethnic groups hold positions of power in our Supreme Court. Many so called minority groups have become successful businessmen and women and many have pulled themselves out of a welfare situation through further education and have become proud owners of homes and hold good paying jobs.

Unfortunately, these are the people we hear very little about - or from - and that doesn't help America fight back against the ever present charges of "racism" today.

There will always be some form of discrimination in our world - whether it's age bias, gender bias, religious bias or race bias. It will exist among the uneducated and nothing will change that. No one can "mandate" that we as a society must love or respect one another despite the differences between us. That will come when all people work together to better understand each other and work to create a bond of trust between one another.

"Respect" is a key word here. Equality is not equal when one group of people are expected to do more and another group do less to achieve "equality". That makes no sense and only breeds contempt between both parties. Mutual respect of each others differences is the only way we will see racial or ethnic "equality" become a reality.

"Respect " is the word we need to see more of today - not "racism". For as long as one group claims "racism", respect will be hard to achieve, especially when much has been done by one group to help overcome that situation and it's neither recognized nor appreciated by the other.

We have come a long way, and united together as people, we will go a lot farther.

Our goal of equality for all will be reached when we can see ourselves as people not defined by skin color or ethnicity. We have a lot of work to do but we will make it.

Learn more about this author, Megan O'Brian.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.