I am about to vacate my house in Singapore very soon, and my landlady is looking for a new tenant. The catch is that Tamils need not apply. This may sound racist, but there is a perfectly justified reason to it. The owners are Tamil Singaporeans themselves, and have a huge extended family (numerous cousins, in-laws, etc) who frequently keep visiting this house. They do not want the tenant to get personal with any one of them beyond a point. And that is quite likely to happen if the tenant speaks the same language, because then he would be of similar cultural background.
This raises an important question- where does one draw the line between discrimination and preference.? These days, discrimination is very much in the news. Any given day, we can read stuff about regionalism, xenophobia, racism, etc. Add the new dimension of sexual orientation to the picture. Practically speaking, almost all the world conflicts happen because one person or group is different from others. That maybe at a personal level, or more than that. But the issue remains the same at the core- just because one person (or a group of people) does not conform to the commonly held notions of society, that person is wrong, and steps should be taken to correct that.
One example is the classroom bullying of a teenager who is not interested in the usual 'school-boy' activities, but is fond of philosophy. So is the shaming of a boy by parents who is more interested in ballet-dance than basketball. On a broader level, there is the example of attempts by missionaries to introduce Christianity to Native Americans in the 19th and 20th century. Let us now look at some international news -the American Presidential debate with its focus on immigration (and American pride), the European refugee crisis, the rise of ISIS in middle east. They all boil down to the same thing- you are not us, hence you are bad!
The truth is that the society has already put too many identities on us. From the time we are born, society divides us into boxes. First of all we have gender, that is naturally given to us. There are the identities that are imposed upon us- religion, race, and caste. And then there are the choices that we make- regarding education, career, etc. All these identities are not the real us. They come in the category of ego- the image we (and the society) have given to ourselves, the mask we have put on to face the world, and also the titles and the roles that define us. We maybe somebody's son, someone's' husband, etc. We may also be the chief accountant of a firm. But none of these make up the real self. [1]
So back to where we started from- when is discrimination allowed, and when is it unjust? Or when is it not discrimination but discernment? There is no clear-cut answer, and this has to be decided on a case-to-case basis. I remember reading an article where a baker was sued by an amount of $125k because he refused to serve cake at a lesbian wedding. Imagine a bizarre hypothetical situation- if the landlord does not want the tenant to smoke, will it be counted as a discrimination against smokers? In this case, my landlady is justified because the tenant is going to stay alongside the family in the same house. And she has the full right to decide which tenant they want to live with. But if she is renting out the house completely, and discriminating against Indians for flimsy reasons (for instance- not liking the smell of curry!), that is completely uncalled for.
References-
[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elyse-gorman/the-difference-between-yo_b_6103266.html
