Talk:Discrimination/Archive 2

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3

Balance of flaws

Restating and expanding on my previous comment, I think that this article gets some NPOV-balancing via a "balance of flaws". A case in point, is that it is rife with statements that imply a difference in numbers or result shows that discrimination is in play. While Rainbowofpeace's removal of the university one was technically valid, we don't want to go down the slippery slope of POV'ing or a POV war by differentially applying such considerations, in view of the above. Also, as, I believe, it was the only mention (and thus a "stub" on) the topic of such discrimination in universities (there is an immense amount of sourcing to this effect) perhaps it should stay in there. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 12:37, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

I am not againist the inclusion of discrimination againist conservatives in universities being included. I'm only againist the fact that pure numbers denote discrimination. Even what was there said that it was disputed as to whether or not discrimination was the reason. I'm sure you can find plenty of actual cases of discrimination and not just numbers. But as stated before the fact that universities in the United States have a larger number of Christians, Heterosexuals, Cisgender people, Able-Bodied people, and Able-Minded people does not consitute that there is Religious discrimination, Homophobia, Transphobia, Ableism or Mentalism involved.-Rainbowofpeace (talk) 12:55, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
I agree, but you are addressing the area that we already agree on rather than the crux of my comment. North8000 (talk) 11:22, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
Here on wikipedia it is our job to go by what most civil rights activisit, sociologists and lawyers would call discrimination. We can't just pretend like we are the divine creators of such a topic. It is true that there is discrimination againist conservatives and liberals in many different places. I'm not denying that. But the fact that there are more liberals in a college does not make a college anti-conservative. Even the statement in question said that is was a "possible but disputed" explanation. We are not looking for things that possibly are discrimination. We are looking for things that are definately discrimination. Find an instance where someone was forbidden to go on to a college campus because of their political affliation. Or a time when a teacher refused to pass a student because of their political affiliation. Thats discrimination. Every other form on here talks about things that are definately discrimination. I'm sure you can find something about actual political discrimination and not just difference in numbers.-Rainbowofpeace (talk) 12:08, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
You are mostly just restating what we already agree on. But I disagree with your first two sentences, it should be on the defined and common meanings of the term, not just what those three groups of people say. And advocating a definition outside of what a narrow group prefers does not equate to acting like a "divine creator". But I think that the essence of your answer is that you do not agree with my idea of temporarily leaving that in as a "stub" to grow that section from. That's fine, it was just an idea I had. Sincerely,, North8000 (talk) 12:36, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

"Majority" vs "Advantaged"

There is currently a paragraph in the lede reading "Discrimination is not always against a disadvantaged group. When a majority group (whites, males, heterosexuals, rich etc.) is discriminated against because they are a member of this group this is usually called reverse discrimination."

Recently, anonymous user 216.105.70.83 made this edit noting "Males and the rich are not majorities". In response User:Rainbowofpeace made this edit responding "A majority or minority isn't alway numerical but what is the dominant group or subordinate group in a particular hierarchy."

I meant to make a mediating edit then, but overlooked it until someone deleted that paragraph today (and Rainbowofpeace rightly restored it). My mediating edit addresses 216.105.70.83's correct point that males and the rich are not majorities, while keeping the point the paragraph is making about males and the rich being (as Rainbowofpeace put it) dominant groups. The logical structure of that paragraph is contrasting disadvantaged groups with their opposite; "majority" is clearly not the correct term to use there, as (despite Rainbowofpeace's edit summary) majority groups can be disadvantaged (there are more poor than rich, for example, but the poor are certainly disadvantaged compared to the rich) and conversely minority groups can be advantaged; "dominant", as Rainbowofpeace puts it, would be fine with me; but the obvious choice for contrasting "disadvantaged" is "advantaged", which I use.

Now User:North8000 has reverted that claiming "You can't be serious about defining those as categorically advantaged groups. For starters, it conflicts with the second half of the sentence." I am at a loss to understand this complaint.

It seems North8000 is arguing that sometimes being discriminated against makes a group non-advantaged. By that logic, sometimes being discriminated in favor of would make a group non-disadvantaged, and e.g. the mere existence of affirmative action programs would magically make the groups those favor no longer disadvantaged because something is now in their favor. But the sentence as it stands already disagrees with that. The entire purpose of that sentence is to contrast "whites, males, heterosexuals, rich etc" with "disadvantaged" groups, and say that such "non-disadvantaged" groups are nevertheless sometimes discriminated against, and that there's a name for that.

I am only trying to state that more clearly for technical accuracy, not trying to make that point myself; the sentence already asserts that as-is, just inaccurately, as males and the rich, and in some places even whites, are not majorities, but are still socially dominant or advantaged groups. If North8000 wants to argue with that sentence existing at all, please go right ahead, but that's a different argument than what word to use in it.

--Pfhorrest (talk) 02:15, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree with you and its not easy trying to make sound contributions to articles which have a small cabal of uncompromising editors who think they WP:own the articles they edit and who scare off anyone whose ideas they personally reject. Too many folks like that on wikipedia. best of luck Peter morrell 07:12, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that it defines whites, males, heterosexuals etc. (categorically) as "advantaged groups". This definition is unsourced, POV and often wrong. As a sidebar I was pointing out that even the second half of the sentence refutes such a categorical statement....wherever there is "reverse discrimination" those are the dis-advangaged groups in those situations. A minor wording change could fix this problem, and since it is a statement buried in the preface (i.e. not the main statement of the statement) it would not even affect the main statement that is there. North8000 (talk) 14:23, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
But the entire paragraph was contrasting whites, males, rich, etc, with "disadvantaged groups", and saying that sometimes it is the former who are discriminated against in favor of the latter. But by your reasoning, it is not possible to favor a "disadvantaged group" over [whatever we call the inverse set of such groups], because in favoring them they become, in that context, the advantaged group.
I think it's clear that the paragraph is talking about whether a group is broadly or typically advantaged or disadvantaged; without saying anything about whether e.g. affirmative action policies are good or bad, I think we can all agree that on average (in the US for example) rich white men are overall or usually at an advantage over poor black women, even if in some circumstances (e.g. when affirmative action is in action) the latter would be favored over the former. And that that's clearly what's meant when the poor, blacks, women, etc, are called "disadvantaged groups", both in the first sentence of that paragraph and in common usage all the time; not that nothing ever goes their way, but that things less frequently go their way.
By that usage, there is nothing wrong with calling the rich, whites, men, etc, likewise "advantaged groups", and I don't think anybody is going to be honestly confused by this usage. There is however something clearly wrong with calling a group which is far outnumbered by its inverse set, like the rich, a "majority"; I can't imagine anybody who would claim that the majority of people are rich.
In other words, if you object to calling the rich, white, and men "advantaged groups", you should be the same logic also object to calling the poor, blacks, and women "disadvantaged groups"; and then what language are we going to use to speak of "reverse discrimination" in distinction from other discrimination? You might want to make a point of that -- that discrimination is discrimination regardless of who it is for or against -- but in that case there's nothing special to say about "reverse discrimination" and so the whole paragraph has to go.
Judging from your edit and comment history I presume that you do want to say that there is such a thing as discriminating against rich, whites, men, etc, and that it is not only actions disfavoring the poor, blacks, women, etc which count as "discrimination". I have no objection to that, in fact I think it's a good point to make; but we need something to call the two supersets. The line is clearly not along minority/majority lines if the poor (a majority) and blacks (a minority) are on the same side. So if we don't say advantaged/disadvantaged, what do we say? I'm honestly open to alternatives, but we have to give both sides of the equation equal treatment. --Pfhorrest (talk) 16:42, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
First, I'm a bit confused. The problematic sentence (which you are arguing in favor of) which I said merely needs tweaking is completely GONE because YOU took it out. (????) That confusion aside, the tweaked version could read something like:
"Discrimination is not always against a disadvantaged group. When a group that is normally considered to be advantaged is discriminated against, that is often called reverse discrimination.
Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 16:54, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
I deleted it expecting it to be reinstated, because nobody had commented on the talk page here and had instead simply reverted my edit without addressing my points, so it appeared you all were only paying attention to edits, not talk.
If you want to put "normally considered to be" in front of advantaged, then logically it needs to go before "disadvantaged" too, because if reverse discrimination ever happens then the "disadvantaged" groups are sometimes favored and are therefore, by your logic, not categorically disadvantaged. But it would be unwieldy to say: "Discrimination is not always against a group normally considered to be disadvantaged. When a group that is normally considered to be advantaged is discriminated against, that is often called reverse discrimination." We need a concise but accurate pair of terms to use. Rainbowofpeace's word "dominant" would work in place of "advantaged", but the only antonym I can think of is "submissive" which definitely doesn't work in context. We should look into what the standard sociological terms used to describe "rich, whites, men, etc" in contrast to "poor, blacks, women, etc" are (if they aren't just "advantaged"/"disadvantaged"). --Pfhorrest (talk)
Well, if you guys just keep talking this through here, then I feel sure you can reach a happy compromise, from which the article will be all the better. best of luck! Peter morrell 07:45, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Removal of reverse-discrimination case material

On second thought, I agree with Hairhorn's removal of the material, including by reverting my re-instatement. Upon a re-read of the article, I noticed that it has done a pretty good job of staying at the higher/more general level. Something this specialized might start messing that good pattern up, so it's fine (and, in hindsight, even preferable) with me that the material stays out. North8000 (talk) 13:06, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Sexual Preference

You can say if you are hetro- or homo- sexual. Any mental alarm bells going off? 203.11.71.124 (talk) 04:59, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

You can also paint yourself a certain skin color, pretend you are of a certain religion, imitate a disability, or pass as a certain sex. That dosn't not make you one of the above. Sexual Orientation is a matter of who you are attracted to and if you could just choose whether to be gay, straight, bisexual, or asexual why would anyone be homosexual with so much homophobia and why would there be so much suicide in the Gay Lesbian or Bisexual community.-Rainbowofpeace (talk) 01:53, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Sex Gender and Gender Identity Discrimination

I think that it is extremely important to recognize that the Sex Gender and Gender Identity section has almost nothing on the transgender community. I hope that someone with knowledge will expand this.-Rainbowofpeace (talk) 08:15, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Of course this raises all of the usual questions. Is it a behavior (whether chosen or per innate tendencies), or is it a membership in a group/category, or the latter created by the former. North8000 (talk) 12:22, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
Ask the people who have committed suicide over it. I know what they will tell you. Anyway that is irrelevant my point is that discrimination againist the Transgender Genderqueer and Intersex community is completely ignored with nothing more than a single sentence about the discrimination that trans people face.-Rainbowofpeace (talk) 13:11, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
I don't dispute any of that. I think that it should be included as you propose. My point was just to make sure that we don't promulgate a double standard which this article has always been on the brink of which is essentially saying that politically correct discrimination is not discrimination. North8000 (talk) 13:20, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

I asked for more coverage on this quite a while ago. I am terrible at research but I still feel that the Sex Gender and Gender Identity section has almost nothing on the transgender community. -Rainbowofpeace (talk) 08:07, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
Have you ever heard of "belling the cat"? Name the problem when you can at least step toward a solution. Shall I, as a straight blanco, start?
Wikidity (talk) 17:00, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

No objections. But as a side note, the article covers only a tiny fraction of the types of discrimination, so more is left out than included. North8000 (talk) 18:44, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Discrimination based on prejudice

I really appreciate this article and I think discrimination issues are important, however I find it annoying that the article is entitled simply "discrimination". Discrimination is fundamental to human activity. Without it we wouldn't be able to discriminate between whether it was a good idea to eat a donut for breakfast or cheerios, hiring managers wouldn't be able to decide who to hire and the list just go's on and on. This is an article about discrimination based on prejudice, not an article based on discrimination. for example this is the definition of discrimination in the encyclopedia britannica "the ability to perceive and respond to differences among stimuli. It is considered a more advanced form of learning than generalization (q.v.), the ability to perceive similarities, although animals can be trained to discriminate as well as to generalize. " ~~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.127.68.170 (talk) 18:02, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Good points, but it's even more complicated than that and I think "prejudice" based is too narrow. But "prejudice based" discrimination which is fashionable / politically correct at the moment is often not called discrimination. So "Black Caucus" would often not be called discrimination, whereas "White Caucus" nearly always would. So the discrimination article has to be careful that it does not itself practice discrimination. :-) North8000 (talk) 20:46, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

"State discrimination vs. free market discrimination"

This entire section reads like a libertarian opinion piece and I'm not really up to the task of rewriting it. There is a total of three sources that are cited repeatedly in both subsections. Two have a clear anarcho-libertarian slant (as do their own sources), but the other I don't have access to.

  • Linda Gorman, "senior fellow at the Independence Institute in Golden, Colorado"—a conservative think tank. A quick Google search for linda gorman independence institute confirms that her favorite dead horse is "big government".
  • Robert P. Murphy, "Senior Fellow in Business and Economic Studies at Pacific Research Institute"—another conservative think tank. Googling robert p murphy pacific research also brings up some anti-global warming and anti-environmentalist propaganda.

Honestly, I'd like to just remove the section because to me it's obviously propaganda, but that wouldn't be very NPOV of me. Anybody? Eris Discord | Talk 00:22, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

I'd have to say I agree with the above. Came to the talk page specifically for the purpose of seeing that this issue was addressed. 99.55.165.173 (talk) 03:42, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

I expected that this section would compare discrimination by the government vs discrimination by non-governmental organizations. E.g., in the US private organizations have more freedom to discriminate than the government. But, astonishingly, this section presents as "fact" that discrimination by private organizations cannot happen. Apparently the earlier mentioned wage discrimination between men and women must not exist either. 108.234.224.230 (talk) 08:33, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

The whole article, by nature of it's topic and the varying definitions of "discrimination" is an assemblage of POV material. I'd be against selectively removing particular POV's. Ditto for what should actually be done with most of the article, which is attributing the POV's (e.g. "according to.......") rather than stating them as fact in the voice of Wikipedia. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 10:10, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

The problem is that the libertarian view is not simply biased, but completely distorted by denying the reality of discrimination within private businesses while placing blame on governments. It resorts to cherry-picking of anecdotes (and extreme ones at that) to justify its position. This section needs to be redone, both for the sake of accuracy, and to present a balance of views. Desmond Ravenstone (talk) 02:50, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Etymology 1 & 2

It is important to remember that the accusation of (some specified) "discrimination" attributes an 'inappropriate motive' to the accused.
Although the motive of the accused might be simple or complicated, the accuser is (almost?) never able or willing to present the possible complications. These complications must be identified by the accused (depending on self-knowledge or deceit), in defending his/her motives for the action or position. Bad faith, rage, or stupidity on either side, can make the debate pointless.
Discrimination in a social or education environment based on moral or ethical grounds (avoid liars, plagiarists, thieves, etc.) is just good personal hygiene & good sense.
(An immoral person might likewise (and reasonably) prefer to avoid people with stricter standards.)
Discrimination in a business environment is much more complicated. As an officer of a business, you must balance the reputation of the business against your corporate protection & duty to maximize financial returns (from clients) to your owners or stock holders, and also against your own personal and professional interests. Every human that lives in a social environment must develop these skills of discrimination. Allowing irrelevancies to affect your decisions will make your actions or position less effective. Deciding what is relevant is the key to careful discrimination. Many aspects of every individual you encounter, overlap; compatibility, personality, decorum, humor, ethics, education, religion, culture, race(definition?), gender, promiscuity, capabilities (physical, mental, social, financial,...), etc.
Wikidity (talk) 17:00, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that is quite a complexity with this word. The first split is between "good", "OK" and "bad" discrimination. The article implicitly limits itself to bad discrimination. Then we get into POV's where people want to create definitions implement their opinions on which is which. E.G. "reverse discrimination isn't discrimination". North8000 (talk) 20:29, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Discrimination is a concept that has been studied extensively in the sociological tradition

I notice that the econ articles, even though they are based on ideologically-informed assumptions like everything else, are at least informative within the confines of that tradition, and scholarly, and Wikipedia boys don't turn them into a big steaming pile of crazy.

This entry by contrast is pretty much a hodge-podge of primitive feelings pulled out of nowhere other than people's arses. Nobody contributing here has put any amount of measured thought--including empirical study and logic--into the subject of discrimination. Nor have they ever paid attention to the robust scholarly community that has. This is one of the worst, most useless Wikipedia entries I have ever seen.

It is completely unclear why whatever sociology-phobe who thinks he's in charge here slapped a big tag on top of the talk page proclaiming that no one can talk without being on board with the verbal vomit program up front. Fundamentally, this entry is a reactionary, uninformed, anti-intellectual, incoherent extravaganza of meaninglessness; it needs a fundamental reboot.

This Wikipedia page is testament to why sociology of all disciplines in the English-speaking world needs a place in the university. Its concepts, like discrimination, are too directly critical, too confrontative for the media-addled public to relate anything coherent, measured, thoughtful, or informed about off the tops of their heads.Blanche Poubelle (talk) 17:16, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Globalize

While the lead is devoid of geographic bias, many of the examples and and subsections are still US-specific and do not represent worldwide view. There is another article, Discrimination in the United States, which specifically deals with the United States and some of the parts belong there. I am pretty sure that there is discrimination in every part of the world and we can use a global perspective. 64.189.103.26 (talk) 05:56, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, and the meanings of discrimination also vary. North8000 (talk) 11:44, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Per the AfD non-admin-closure, a discussion to merge or not was indicated after editors !noted delete or merge and SPA accounts !keep. So here is the discussion. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 14:33, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

  • If there is sourced information to merge in — say the phrase and one or two paragraphs explaining the origins and use of the term and what it connotes — I would have no objection to that. I advised Delete during the debate, I believe. Carrite (talk) 16:42, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
  • The article is short and is a sub-topic of discrimination, which would seem to obviate a merge. Most of the sources I found were trivial mentions, so I don't think the subject merits a dedicated article. - MrX 17:09, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
  • per the Ethnic penalty page, the definition is just "discrimination in the workplace", ie - a very specific subset of this article. There does not appear to be widespread usage of the term on its own with sufficient independent coverage to warrant a stand alone spin off article at this time. 'Support the merge. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 18:02, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Originally posted on the debate as well, as this concept is central to some of my research. To Mr. X and RedPen's point, the ethnic penalty is a widely used term in Commonwealth nations to examine the education and non-cognitive human capital of ethnic minorities, and how this translates to their labour market outcomes. There are a few hundred citations alone using a quick google scholar search of "ethnic penalty", so hardly a trival topic. Further, an ethnic penalty is not merely discrimination, as the work of Professors Heath and Hasmath suggests. It involves social and non-cognitive factors interplaying at the individual, organizational and societal levels which are beyond a description of discrimination - which makes merging it to discrimination a moot point. While I am not the original author of the article, I have edited the article to reflect this point more strongly. Oxfsoc 15:48, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
  • This is simply a neologism for the encyclopedic concept of Discrimination. Deleting would be appropriate, although I'm not opposed to a merge. I will point out to the others here that User:Oxfsoc did state explicitly at the AfD that "I am a PhD candidate looking at this topic". This would appear to be someone who's advancing outside interests with this subject, and has perhaps both financial and academic reasons for its inclusion as a standalone topic. --Hu12 (talk) 17:28, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Hu12's original assertion that it is a neologism has been discussed at length at the AfD [1]. There was a strong consensus reached here by various individuals to suggest that it is not a neologism. It is further silly to suggest there is an advacement of outside interests, financially(!?!) or otherwise. It is a given that Wikipedia relies on experts in the field to ensure the reliability of information. Contrary to Hu12's comments, I do not have a COI in this article or the sources cited, in accordance to Wikipedia's policies. My purpose, as is the case for most individuals here, it to ensure that there is appropriate evidence for this established term, using reliable/refereed sources (which is the case at this juncture). Oxfsoc 22:46, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
there was most absolutely NOT a strong consensus. and when you give appropriate weight to the SPA, the balance turns even farther away from such a claim. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 00:33, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
The consensus was leaned towards merge, but given some of the opposition in the AfD, I felt it would be better to discuss first. Usually, AfDs aren't relisted beyond 3 listing periods, and there definitely wasn't a consensus to delete. Michaelzeng7 (talk) 23:53, 10 March 2013 (UTC)
  • "Ethnic penalty" is an expression and, no matter how widely used it is, WP is still not a dictionary. If there was an article on "Economic differences between ethnic groups in one society", or something like that, it should be merged there. As it is Discrimination is broad enough that it would fit in there. BigJim707 (talk) 20:30, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

lede list

A list of possible categories for discrimination in the Lede is misleading to the reader. It gives the impression that some categories are better qualified than others and leaves out important categories of individuals who experience discrimination. I don't believe that this article should have a bias in the lede to certain groups and disqualify others as not worthy to be in the list. Additionally the sourcing was changed from the cambridge dictionary to a university website which, when it comes to definitions, is a less reliable source.Coffeepusher (talk) 13:43, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

I made a mistake, sourcing wasn't changed a new website was added. My comments still stand.Coffeepusher (talk) 14:08, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
I agree. It is impossible to include all types or categories of discrimination in the lede, and including only some would show bias towards those types. What important is the definition of discrimination in the lede. All the categories can be found on the sidebar and in the subsequent sections of the article.147.129.132.2 (talk) 17:11, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

First to third world country discrimination

Hello, I'm wondering if there is a word for the type of discrimination people receive by coming from a 3rd world (or developing) country. It's not nationality based, just for coming from a non-developed country. For example, if you are living in Australia and you are considered a migrant for coming from South America, while a French guy think he is not, because he is part of the EU. I think this should be included in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.148.229.83 (talk) 12:23, 26 May 2013‎ (UTC)

It would seem to still be nationality based in large part, with some race and ethnicity often thrown in, but also with a huge helping of discrimination based on socioeconomic status, the same type evidenced in the once common phrase "poor white trash" (since somewhat PC'd to "trailer trash"), which I didn't see mentioned in a brief scan of the article. Fat&Happy (talk) 17:04, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
Yes, I agree. But is still kind of different. For example, if someone comes from South America but has (for example) Dutch heritage, he/she would still be discriminated. Moreover, it can happen when people don't even know the specific country. Knowing that someone comes from a developing country is enough to be discriminated in some contexts. It's kind of a fuzzy concept, but I see it quite often. Treating people different in basis of coming from 1st or 3rd world (e.g. realestate). Maybe there is no word for this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.148.229.83 (talk) 00:41, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Gender Discrimination

How is it that Gender discrimination is only found in Western cultures in this article? Is there no gender discrimination in Africa or the Middle East or Russia? If so, it should be described and should be a part of this article. Ridingdog (talk) 02:48, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Then quit complaining and add something no one is stopping you. Besides this article is meant to bring a brief description of each form of discrimination.-Rainbowofpeace (talk) 04:57, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Copyright problem removed

Prior content in this article duplicated one or more previously published sources. The material was copied from: here, here, here, and here. Copied or closely paraphrased material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.) For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or published material; such additions will be deleted. Contributors may use copyrighted publications as a source of information, and according to fair use may copy sentences and phrases, provided they are included in quotation marks and referenced properly. The material may also be rewritten, but only if it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Therefore such paraphrased portions must provide their source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously, and persistent violators will be blocked from editing. While we appreciate contributions, we must require all contributors to understand and comply with these policies. Thank you. Diannaa (talk) 23:27, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

I think the title of the article should make it clear that this article is referring ONLY to discrimination between groups of people. As it is it expropriates a much broader term "discrimination" purely for this one avenue of discrimination. For example, people discriminate between different things quite constantly, as this is how decisions are made. Also, when it comes to discriminate between groups of individuals, this article is from a purely human-from-human perspective, while there is also discrimination between different species. For example, humans discriminate against animals they can eat (cow), versus those that are pets (dog). Since listing all possible forms of discrimination is impossible, it is thus necessary to limit these definitions by having a much more specific title. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.206.235.88 (talk) 19:38, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

My Edits to the First Paragraph(s)

Well here's how it stands now:

Discrimination is action that denies social participation or human rights to categories of people based on prejudice.[citation needed] This includes treatment of an individual or group based on their actual or perceived membership in a certain group or social category, "in a way that is worse than the way people are usually treated".[1] It involves the group's initial reaction or interaction, influencing the individual's actual behavior towards the group or the group leader, restricting members of one group from opportunities or privileges that are available to another group, leading to the exclusion of the individual or entities based on logical or irrational decision making.[2]

Not all discrimination is based on prejudice, however. In the U.S., government policy known as affirmative action was instituted to encourage employers and universities to seek out and accept groups such as African-Americans and women, who have been subject to the opposite kind of discrimination for a long time.[3] Discriminatory traditions, policies, ideas, practices, and laws exist in many countries and institutions in every part of the world, even in ones where discrimination is generally looked down upon. In some places, controversial attempts such as quotas have been used to benefit those believed to be current or past victims of discrimination—but have sometimes been called reverse discrimination themselves.

It didn't used to specify 'Not all discrimination is based on prejudice.' If someone could compare the older versions before my revisions to my revisions and give me some feedback, I'd appreciate it. It might be better to put it back the way it was before, and not over-complicate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Psx1337 (talkcontribs) 16:57, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia Primary School announcement

Hi everybody. On behalf of the teams behind the Wikipedia Primary School research project, I would like to announce that this article has been selected to be reviewed by an external expert. We'd like to ask the English Wikipedia community to join our efforts and improve the article before December 31, 2014 (any timezone); a revision will be then sent to the designated expert for review in early 2015. Any notes and remarks written by the external expert will be made available on this page under a CC-BY-SA license as soon as possible, so that editors can decide if and how to use them. Thanks a lot for your support! --Elitre (WPS) (talk) 16:08, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

gulf states

2.50.87.217 you need a source for this. can you explain what the issue is, to which you are referring, and maybe I can help you find a source? Thanks Jytdog (talk) 21:36, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Drug use

The following addition was removed with the comment "revert original research/editoril interpretation; sources are full of anecdotes but do not support them being called discrimination":

Drug Use
In addition to imprisonment and torture,[1] people who use certain drugs face discrimination in voting, employment, housing, and child custody.[2][3][4][5]
  1. ^ Szalavitz, Maia (2012-08-03). "Human Rights Watch: Hundreds of Thousands Still Tortured in Name of Drug Treatment". Time. Retrieved 2014-08-06.
  2. ^ Knafo, Saki (2013-07-25). "Voting Rights Of Black Americans Trampled By 'New Jim Crow,' Civil Rights Advocates Say". Huffington Post. Retrieved 2014-08-06.
  3. ^ Winsten, Richard D.; Millus, Paul F. (2014-08-06). "Cannabis Conundrum: Medical Marijuana Law and Employers". New York Law Journal. Retrieved 2014-08-06.
  4. ^ Greenhouse, Linda (2002-03-27). "Justices Rule Drug-Eviction Law Is Fair". New York Times. Retrieved 2014-08-06.
  5. ^ Riggs, Mike (2013-05-08). "Even in 2013, Parents Who Use Marijuana Risk Losing Their Kids". Reason. Retrieved 2014-08-06.

The removal of the addition, each point of which is well documented using a reliable source, leaves one at a loss how such a palpable truth might be framed so as to merit inclusion.

Danny Sprinkle (talk) 20:06, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Take a look at what the sources cited are: four news articles and one paper in a legal journal. If it is a 'palpable truth' there will be papers in peer-reviewed social science journals that should be cited. Werhdnt (talk) 18:09, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

I have added an expanded revision that addresses the above criticisms, with more sources, including several peer-reviewed social science journal articles. Danny Sprinkle (talk) 18:41, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Opening of the lede extremely problematic

The article starts with the very dubious claim "Discrimination is treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit." Frankly, this claim alone revokes any legitimacy of this article and made me stop reading right there.

On the contrary, discrimination can very well take place based on individual merit, except in as far that any judgment call is eventually somewhat heuristic and leaves border-cases: Having a college degree is an individual merit, but of course people with college degrees also form a group and the use of a college degree as an instrument for e.g. selecting or reject job applicants will not in it self be perfect.

There are several forms of discrimination which are usually considered unethical and/or are illegal in most circumstances, e.g. discrimination by race or age. Through the dominance of these cases in public debate and news reporting there is a very unfortunate tendency among the uneducated to equate "discrimination" with e.g. "illegal discrimination" or a related variation, say discrimination by an irrelevant criterion or a criteria that makes undue generalizations. When someone discriminates by e.g. requiring a college degree, a licence to practice medicine, or a bar membership, the word "discrimination" is rarely used; however, these are all perfectly valid cases. Indeed, the vast majority of all cases of discrimination are perfectly harmless, including the dozens we each make everyday.

However, these special cases are no more the definition of "discrimination" than "militant, vegetarian extremist" is the definition of "vegan".

By starting the article with this grossly incorrect description, the common misconception of discrimination risks being worsened.

I urge that the article be rewritten to reflect the actual meaning of the word. 80.226.24.15 (talk) 17:43, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

I have just skimmed through the archives. The very same problem has been raised with strong arguments several times in the past. That it remains despite this is inexcusable.80.226.24.15 (talk) 17:50, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

This article is about discrimination based on protected status. If you want to see discrimination as a way of determining what is what please see data discrimination or others in the disambiguation page. Thanks :)-Rainbowofpeace (talk) 20:55, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

The name of the article is "Discrimination". If you wish the article to discuss something different, you have to rename it to correctly reflect the contents, e.g. "discrimination based on protected status".

Thus, I repeat my urge with optional alteration of renaming the article. 80.226.24.11 (talk) 17:02, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 8 external links on Discrimination. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add {{cbignore}} after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add {{nobots|deny=InternetArchiveBot}} to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers. —cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 23:48, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Discrimination against Jews

Discrimination against Jews is mentioned as illustrative examples of discrimination several times in this article. Let me remind everyone, that discrimination against Jews poses certain difficulties, because the discrimination can be either of an ethnic nature (the Jewish people as seen as an ethnic group) or a religious nature (the religious Jews, practising Judaism). Just a warning to possible misunderstandings. RhinoMind (talk) 23:02, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Bizarre POV

Quote: The Equality and Human Rights Commission found that in England and Wales as of 2010, a black person was five times more likely to be imprisoned than a white person. The discrepancy was attributed to "decades of racial prejudice in the criminal justice system"

Ockham's razor ("the simplest explanation usually is the best") might bring one to the conclusion that Blacks end up in prison more often AND are discriminated against BECAUSE they have more tendency to disobey the law. Think about it - where does "racial prejudice in the criminal justice system" come from, if not from the ever-and-ever repeating experience of Blacks being involved in criminal deeds observed by the judges. If five times as many Blacks get imprisoned, it follows that Blacks are five times more likely to do illegal things than Whites. If that is not a perfectly good reason to become suspiciious of them and discriminate against them, what is? Were Blacks to live their lifes as honestly and discreetly as Whites, nobody would imprison them. 92.214.197.243 (talk) 04:41, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Positive Definition of Discriminating

dis•crim•i•nat•ing (dɪˈskrɪm əˌneɪ tɪŋ)

adj. 1. analytical. 2. discerning; perspicacious. 3. having excellent taste or judgment. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.103.203.195 (talk) 12:35, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

As is often the case with English words, discrimination and discriminating have several meanings. When there is only one meaning of a word that has an article in Wikipedia we use that word as the article title. If there is another meaning that you can write an article about we let the title be the word with a distinguisher, e.g. Discrimination (distinguishing). See Wikipedia:Disambiguation for more information. This article is about the meaning of discrimination that's described in the first few sentences. Please don't try to include the other meanings in this article. Sjö (talk) 14:09, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Simple answer: No two separate meanings are involved. Discrimination in the sense of the article is what discriminating people in the sense of the above dictionary entry naturally and habitually do. Both kinds are very unpopular these days, and that POV is massively reflected in the article. One cannot realistically expect otherwise in 2016 (you are lucky if you still have an old dictionary giving the real meaning of certain words!) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.214.197.243 (talk) 04:49, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Religious freedom used to justify discrimination against others

Where in this article would it be appropriate to broach this subject? -- BullRangifer (talk) 19:48, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Hi. You would first need to explain yourself in more detail here. Then perhaps someone can help you. I can not make any sense of your headline whatsoever. RhinoMind (talk) 22:55, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

I'll help you understand: Muslim fanatics are discriminating against White women (e.g. sexually assaulting and insulting them) and are not prosecuted because what they do is an expression of their religion. Happens currently in Germany and elsewhere in Europe. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.214.197.243 (talk) 04:55, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Sexual/Gender Section confusing and unsupported in part

I find no support for the following:

"Though gender discrimination and sexism refer to beliefs and attitudes in relation to the gender of a person, such beliefs and attitudes are of a social nature and do not, normally, carry any legal consequences. Sex discrimination, on the other hand, may have legal consequences. Though what constitutes sex discrimination varies between countries, the essence is that it is an adverse action taken by one person against another person that would not have occurred had the person been of another sex. Discrimination of that nature is considered a form of prejudice and in certain enumerated circumstances is illegal in many countries.

Sexual discrimination can arise in different contexts. For instance, an employee may be discriminated against by being asked discriminatory questions during a job interview, or by an employer not hiring or promoting, unequally paying, or wrongfully terminating, an employee based on their gender."

The notion that beliefs and attitudes are "gender discrimination" and "sexism" but "sex discrimination" is legally actionable simply makes no sense in any legal system with which I am familiar. The terms are used interchangeably.

The introduction here needs to be redone with citations.

Also, the inclusion of slasher films is a bit of a stretch. Avocats (talk) 19:51, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 3 external links on Discrimination. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add {{cbignore}} after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add {{nobots|deny=InternetArchiveBot}} to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 08:58, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to one external link on Discrimination. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add {{cbignore}} after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add {{nobots|deny=InternetArchiveBot}} to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at {{Sourcecheck}}).

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 09:07, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

right of freedom of religion as enshrined in the constitution — Preceding unsigned comment added by 163.200.101.57 (talk) 12:40, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Discrimination based on intelligence

Would this count as discrimination? I think I could find some sources on this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Xanikk999 (talkcontribs) 23:19, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Definition of Discrimination

Article is heavily biased towards description one type of discrimination definition - post-modern definition of social discrimination. I propose to divide article into articles one of which describes post-modern understanding of social discrimination and second article, which describes discrimination as such: Do not confuse two definitions, be more accurate and neutral! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.239.156.142 (talk) 15:42, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

"Discrimination" has several meanings, as you can see at Discrimination (disambiguation), and a word's original meaning is not always the most common. This article is about the prejudicial treatment based on real or perceived membership of a group, not about the original meaning. You are welcome to create an article about the meaning distinguish based on quality. That way we can avoid confusing the different meanings of the word. Sjö (talk) 04:22, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

Ok, I will later create about discrimination distinguish based on quality, because, imho, modern day usage of term really ignores original meaning of term. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.239.156.143 (talk) 15:51, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

If this article is specifically about discrimination based on social identity, it needs a new source for its definition, since the Cambridge Dictionary defines discrimination simply as treating people differently, without specifying a criterion. --93.33.165.37 (talk) 09:36, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on Discrimination. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at {{Sourcecheck}}).

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 21:46, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Sexual orientation cleanup

The examples are badly chosen, the wording is suboptimal, and it does not overall give a good explanation of this type of discrimination and the reasons for it. This section is greatly in need of cleanup, as this is one of the major forms of discrimination in the world today. Tamwin (talk) 07:04, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Subcategory

Category:Prejudice and discrimination should not be included as a subcategory of Category:Feuds. The former is a very broad subject, while the latter is something much more specific. (Also, Category:Prejudice and discrimination includes Bias as a subcategory, which I also don't think is appropriate.) A feud is a long-standing conflict, while prejudice and discrimination refers more to a general practice or type of attitude; discrimination against a particular portion of the local population, for instance does not necessarily amount to a feud.--Solomonfromfinland (talk) 20:00, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

I do not necessarily disagree with you, as feuds may be based on different motivations than discrimination. Such as competition over property rights, business, political aspirations. However, some of them are based on discriminatory practices. I would not oppose removing the category if the link between them is too weak. Dimadick (talk) 09:40, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Discrimination. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 15:47, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on Discrimination. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 19:55, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Discrimination. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 09:10, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Philosophy of discrimination?

I am curious as to whether or not the page could include a section on the philosophy of discrimination that would discuss things such as, for example, what constitutes discrimination and why it is wrong (for example is affirmative action discrimination? Some would say yes because it favors people based on group membership, others might argue no because it is justified to make up for disadvantages. Is not hiring ex-convicts discrimination? Some would say yes because it is assuming that committing a crime means they will do it again, others would say no because the acts a person has done may be relevant to their job. Is finding short men unattractive discrimination?). I was thinking about this after reading the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's discussion on it and I thought that it might be worth adding. Would that be the case? And if so, should it go under the "Theories" section, given this section itself already sort of discusses this (it refers to egalitarian social theories arguing equality should prevail, which is philosophical). I thought it would also be useful for providing information on what constitutes discrimination (the same section also links to the speciesism page, which also includes debate on the topic, for example) as discussed not just in law but in philosophy too.

Thoughts?Sdio7 (talk) 01:55, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

New modeling section

Right now it looks like just a couple quick soapbox rants which should not be in an article. Will it be better soon? North8000 (talk) 11:37, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

Can you explain a bit more about what you mean - I think I understand but could you give examples? Sdio7 (talk) 20:56, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
Someone took it out (and I think rightly so). But, the entire section consisted of just 2 short somewhat incoherent and off topic sentences. I don't know how one could derive examples from that. North8000 (talk) 22:50, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
Hello. I am interested in adding a new Subsection titled: Hijab discrimination in the workplace. I originally posted it under Islamophobia, but it was suggested I add it under discrimination since I focused on articles and studies that support the instances of discrimination Muslim women who wear the headscarf face in the workplace. Please give me any feedback on placement or thoughts in general. Thank you. Ieldab2 (talk) 23:01, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Anti bullying

What is bullying ? It is a thing in which a person is hurted little for example if someone hits or tells you that you are fat is know as bully If this things continuous for a long period of time and the the things starts to be more and more that is known as an abuse . The person who abuses us known as an abuser. Bhuvika sharma (talk) 16:16, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

Scope

This article is really about hundreds of topics and meanings of the term with little common thread between them. Under that anything can be added....the defacto definition is "Any incorporation of any attribute of any person into any decision regarding that person". I wonder if it should even be an article? North8000 (talk) 20:55, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

Removing information

I'm removing a bunch of info from the sub-topics on the main page because they are so wildly distorted and disporportionate. Why does drug discrimination have so many sources? Why is sex discrimination so massive? These should go on the main pages of these articles, not on this article. I've also taken done some forms of discrimination because either the list on the page must be exhaustive (i.e include all kinds) or it should only include a few, so I don't see why stuff like Secondary phenomena, lookism and speciesism are up there. Discrimination based on genetics, martial status and social class are all in the opening line yet not present in the sub-topics, so I have no idea how things are being placed there. As far as I can tell people just throw whatever shit they want onto the page. And linguistic discrimination has received no additional sources in over 8 years.

Also, this article really needs to get its scope sorted out. The post above me was right - it's about hundreds of topics and discrimination is a morally loaded term. Serious clean up required. Sdio7 (talk) 05:20, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

RfC on speciesism

Please note there is current an RfC concerning this article at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Discrimination#RfC on including speciesism in the Discrimination article. R2 (bleep) 07:13, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Adding Species section

Further to previous discussion about including species in the list (Template talk:Discrimination § Discrimination includes all forms of discrimination, human or non-human), the same has been added with a description in the lede. Please discuss before reverting. Rasnaboy (talk) 02:25, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

The page only refers to human discrimination, per its first line. The consensus did not say it be added to the lead.
The discussion stated this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Discrimination#This_template_needs_further_documentation
After reading the exchange between Normal Op and Eric Herboso above, I'm thinking that a link to Speciesism belongs in the "Related topics" section of this template. Speciesism is mentioned in the Discrimination article, but not in the lead section. Putting Speciesism in the "Related topics" section at the bottom of this template would accurately reflect how it is treated in the main article: definitely related, but not central to that article's definition. And the discussion about WP:NPOV above clarified that the presence of an item in this template does not imply endorsement of somebody's relevant norm. Biogeographist (talk) 01:47, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
I see a simple solution, but am not sure how "simple" people here would perceive it to be: that we have sources in which scholars regard speciesism as discrimination against non-human species (Singer, Francione, Ryder, Regan, Horta, Engel, Wise, Joy and others), why not add in the lede of the Descrimination article something like "Although traditionally linked with injustices against humans, starting from the 1970s, scholars began to recognize descrimination extending to non-human species as well..." and brief about speciesism in a subsection under "Examples of Discrimination"? After all speciesism is not a fringe issue but a well-established concept of study in the academics. I guess this is what Chrisahn suggested initially. Rasnaboy (talk) 03:30, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
No, that's not what I suggested. I agree that speciesism is not a fringe concept anymore. But the opinion that the usual meaning of discrimination includes non-humans is a fringe opinion. For example, here are the top results for https://www.google.com/search?q=discrimination : [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14]. They all mention person, people and other words for human beings. None of them mention animals, let alone speciesism. -- Chrisahn (talk) 03:42, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
Any feedback on the idea of putting Speciesism in the "Related topics" section? Biogeographist (talk) 03:50, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
I guess it might be a compromise. But I'd rather stick to the definition given in the lede and the Definitions section of Discrimination. If we add speciesism to this template, we're using a broader definition. In that case, we should also add Price discrimination and several other terms. -- Chrisahn (talk) 04:03, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
@Chrisahn: original suggestion was this:
If you want to change the definition of discrimination, try changing the lede of Discrimination. When and if the definition has been changed to include non-humans, we can include non-humans in this template. But as long as every definition of discrimination only includes humans, this template must only include humans. -- Chrisahn (talk) 10:11, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

Which seems to imply changing the definition used in the lead, which he disagreed with (arguing that you'd need an updated definition). @Biogeographist: argued against including it in the article, rather having it in the Related Topics.

So that would require changing the definition of the term. Sdio7 (talk) 03:00, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
This article is about discrimination, not about "human discrimination" as such (in which case the article title would need amendment). As knowledge widens, the definition widens too. Like any concept, discrimination, though initially defined for humans, can very well be expanded as humanity develops and knowledge widens. That has to be indicated in the lede (which I did). Comparing speciesism and price discrimination is but apples and oranges fallacy. Rasnaboy (talk) 04:07, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
Discrimination is generally taken to be about discrimination against categories humans and is most commonly treated as such. The word discrimination has numerous definitions and the lead defines it in this way. So the type of discrimination was indicated in the lead (notably the concept of discrimination described in the article is highly contentious because the article is about "unjustified discrimination between human beings" and different people have different views on what counts as justifiable discrimination). A different article would be required for different concepts of discrimination. We have specific articles for related but distinct concepts (statistical discrimination, speciesism and so forth). We could also have an article about "justified discrimination amongst humans" but we wouldn't include that here because this article is for unjustified discrimination amongst humans. Sdio7 (talk) 05:15, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
Again, you're oscillating between generic and specific definitions intermittently. We can't have an article on a generic term and later claim "that's only for humans"; that'd only lead to definist fallacy. The article on discrimination should include all its defined and refined categories, its initial definition notwithstanding. Wonder how we claim speciesism as not a discrimination while equating it with statistical "discrimination". Apples and oranges again. Rasnaboy (talk) 06:25, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
No, I'm sticking with the definition in the lead. The article isn't on the generic definition of discrimination, there is no generic definition (just differing specific definitions, words don't have inherent meaning). Discrimination, as commonly defined, only refers to discrimination amongst humans. The only other common definition of discrimination is "making distinctions between thing", with no regard to morality (under this definition, you can have justified and unjustified discrimination. Under the definition used in this article, "justified" discrimination is an oxymoron). Discrimination has multiple definitions but the one the article uses is the commonly used one. Thus the article is about unjustified distinctions amongst humans (which is its definition of discrimination). So anything on the page used as an example of discrimination has to satisfy three criterion - it has to make a distinction, be unjustified and be amongst humans. If it doesn't do that, it either shouldn't be on the page or should only be a minor note (note that the "Theories and Philosophy" section does actually mention speciesism but only briefly because the article isn't about that, so adding much more would be undue weight. I'm not actually sure it should even be there really given the article isn't about that). Sdio7 (talk) 06:45, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
Yes. That's exactly the purpose of the sentence added to the lede. By "discrimination", this article isn't about "justified" discrimination but only unjustified one. But restricting it only to humans is what seems arbitrary, especially when we have enough scholarships that oppose restricting injustices only to humans, and that is what we're trying to say there. The very term "speciesism" was coined to serve this purpose. Am not asking you include "species" later in the article while having a definition that includes only human in the lede. The idea that scholars identified the wider definition and included it in the second half of the 20th century in the lede is enough to have this explained later in the "species" section. When the definition is no longer narrow as it used to be in the last century and when we have enough scholarly research that says exactly this, not including it in the article only leaves a void in the article, making the article seem not up to date. Rasnaboy (talk) 07:05, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
Rasnaboy, if I understand you correctly you are saying that the definition of discrimination nowadays includes speciesism. But that position seems to be a minority and as such WP:UNDUE and WP:OFFTOPIC. The definitions in the lede explicitly say that discrimination concerns the treatment of humans. Until a majority of sources begin stating that animals also can be discriminated against, speciesism is out of scope for this article. Sjö (talk) 14:10, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
Speciesism as a form of discrimination is not off-topic or undue, for which we have loads of scholarly sources published in the academia over the past five decades. Peter Singer in 1973 called it "the last remaining form of discrimination" (https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2003/05/15/animal-liberation-at-30/). I'm not asking to change the definition in the lede but only mention the idea that the circle of the term discrimination has been widened in the 20th century to include other sentient species (for which we have several sources), which resulted in species discrimination being identified since then. While we normally do this with other concepts (for example, the traditional "homosexuality" morphing to LGBT, and later widening to LGBTQ, then LGBTIQ+), why not discrimination? Am really surprised to know why a category of discrimination, which scholars equate with racism and sexism, is viewed by some editors as faring worse than such categories as drug use discrimination. Rasnaboy (talk) 15:53, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
"the circle of the term discrimination has been widened" – No, the common meaning of the word discrimination has not been widened as much as you think. More precisely: Very few people (if any) commonly use the word in that widened sense.
"for which we have several sources" – We have several sources for the claim that some people have argued that speciesism should be considered a form of discrimination. There are no sources for the claim that the common meaning of the word discrimination includes non-humans.
"which resulted in species discrimination being identified since then" – Your wording being identified sounds like you believe this view has been generally accepted. It has not.
"which scholars equate with racism and sexism" – Only a small minority (of scholars and people in general) equate speciesism with racism and sexism. That's why it's only mentioned briefly in the article. Anything else would be WP:UNDUE. (Maybe drug use discrimination should be deleted from the article as well. But that's a different discussion. Let's focus on speciesism for now.)Chrisahn (talk) 01:43, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

It would be nice to have stuck to the definition in the lead, but that ship has sailed. The article already has included defining treating somebody negatively because of a behavior or action of theirs (e.g. of illegal drug use) as "discrimination". Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 12:19, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Drug discrimination is still amongst humans using drugs is a category to which people (are perceived) to belong. The article isn't just about immutable characteristics like sex or race, it also includes stuff like language or drug use (amongst humans). I would also argue that if drug discrimination was in contradiction to the lead (it isn't, this is a hypothetical), that's grounds for immediately removing the Drug Use section entirely since it wouldn't be relevant to the article. Sdio7 (talk) 17:58, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
The illegal drug use section should probably should get deleted. If we open the door to inclusion of discriminating based on (categories based on) behavior or actions (vs. innate characteristics) we have a hopelessly and meaninglessly broad definition and article. North8000 (talk) 19:38, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Rasnaboy, the article does mention speciesism in the "Theories and Philosophy" section on a brief note (the citation also includes a brief quote from Singer as well). I am of the view it probably shouldn't be there since that's not what the article is about but I am willing to leave it there for now since it is only briefly mentioned and only in reference to the main article. It is a related topic but not the article topic and thus does not belong in the lead, only in the Related Topics section. Singer called it the "last form of discrimination" and others disagree with him on that (indeed this is why the page for Speciesism mentions Singer's views as his own, as well as the views of his critics), thus it would make no sense to include speciesism on the page if there are scholars who do not think it is a form of unjustified discrimination (and again, the page is about unjustified discrimination towards humans). Just because some scholars think it is a form of discrimination (and note they will be using a different definition since the article definition applies only to humans) does not mean we need to include it on this page. Sdio7 (talk) 17:58, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

@Rasnaboy: This article should not have a "Species" section, and the lede should not mention speciesism, because the general term discrimination does not include non-humans. Here are several definitions of discrimination (I simply copied them from the top Google results):

  1. Amnesty International: Discrimination occurs when a person is unable to enjoy his or her human rights or other legal rights on an equal basis with others because of an unjustified distinction made in policy, law or treatment.
  2. American Psychological Association: Discrimination is the unfair or prejudicial treatment of people and groups based on characteristics such as race, gender, age or sexual orientation.
  3. Cambridge Dictionary: treating a person or particular group of people differently, especially in a worse way from the way in which you treat other people, because of their skin colour, sex, sexuality, etc. ... the treatment of a person or particular group of people differently, in a way that is worse than the way people are usually treated
  4. UK government: It is against the law to discriminate against anyone because of: age; gender reassignment; being married or in a civil partnership; being pregnant or on maternity leave; disability; race including colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin; religion or belief; sex; sexual orientation
  5. The CDC lists the following types of discrimination: Age Discrimination; Disability Discrimination; Sexual Orientation; Status as a Parent; Religious Discrimination; National Origin; Pregnancy; Sexual Harassment; Race, Color, and Sex; Reprisal / Retaliation
  6. Canadian Human Rights Commission: Discrimination is an action or a decision that treats a person or a group badly for reasons such as their race, age or disability.
  7. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: as a reasonable first approximation, we can say that discrimination consists of acts, practices, or policies that impose a relative disadvantage on persons based on their membership in a salient social group.
  8. Britannica: Discrimination, the intended or accomplished differential treatment of persons or social groups for reasons of certain generalized traits.

None of them mention animals or species.
Wikipedia does not establish terms or concepts. We write about terms and concepts as they are commonly used. As the sources above show, in common usage the term "discrimination" (without any qualifiers) applies only to members of the species homo sapiens.
Language evolves. Maybe the meaning of the word discrimination will change. Maybe in five, fifteen or fifty years it will include other species. Then we can also include them in this article. But currently it doesn't, so we can't. — Chrisahn (talk) 19:00, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

I agree all these predominantly talk about human discrimination. But we should not forget that the examples that you give view discrimination from a single political perspective (human). Since most of these sources provide the definition from the political domain, they chiefly include only the most prominent human categories. Of all the types of discrimination, only one type is non-human and all others are mostly human. Thus going by the predominance, you get the definition accordingly. This is the same reason why the English language uses “he” to mean both genders until recently (because the predominant was male, especially in the pre-20th-century period). Although descriptively it means “he,” normatively it means both he and she. In the literature, every mention about speciesism points to discrimination. Even the Oxford and Webster’s dictionaries mention it as “discrimination” in their definition to the term “speciesism.” I think the inclusion of the phrase “Although traditionally refers to injustices to humans, scholars of the 20th century expanded the definition to include non-human animals as well…” in the lede serves this well, without distorting the main definition. Bhagya sri113 (talk) 04:30, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
Yes. Amnesty International, psychological associations, human rights commissions, or governments all have their focus primarily on humans (as they are created by humans for humans), so any definition they give will obviously point mainly to a human (as the base). This cannot be cited for not including what can otherwise be inferred systematically by logic or common sense. A generic definition of the term "animal", for example, may prominently point to vertebrates, insects, mollusks and other "moving" species, but a deeper analysis will include the distant placozoa and mesozoa as falling under the category of animals. Just because the generic or dictionary definition of the term "animal" did not point to these "fringe" species does not mean these should not be included under "animals". The very reason for the coining of the term "speciesism" is that it has been identified as discrimination, which initially did not include it. Citing this as reason for excluding speciesism only begs the question. Rasnaboy (talk) 07:04, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
Have requested for RfC. Let's see what others say. Rasnaboy (talk) 08:27, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
I feel that this is a bit of a waste of time. We've had this same discussion three months ago (October 2020). Nothing has changed since then. But anyway, here we go again...
@Bhagya sri113: @Rasnaboy: Yes, all the articles I pointed to talk about discrimination against humans. The point is: They all simply call it "discrimination". The title of each article is "discrimination" (not e.g. "discrimination against humans"). These articles are the top results of a Google search for "discrimination" (not e.g. "discrimination against humans" or "discrimination + politics"). I think that's good evidence for my claim that the common meaning of the word "discrimination" is "discrimination against humans".
@Bhagya sri113: "every mention about speciesism points to discrimination" – That may be true, but it's irrelevant. Words can have different meanings based on context. Without any qualifiers, "discrimination" usually means "discrimination against humans", as the sources show. But in some contexts, it can have a different or broader meaning. Examples: Markovian discrimination, tactile discrimination, price discrimination, discrimination learning, two-point discrimination. In these examples, the word "discrimination" has a different meaning, so they are not mentioned in this article. Similarly for speciesism: Yes, it's a form of "discrimination", but not in the common meaning of the word "discrimination". That's why speciesism is briefly mentioned in this article, but not included in the lede or in a separate section.
@Rasnaboy: "what can otherwise be inferred systematically by logic or common sense" – We're dealing with an empirical question here, namely "what is the common meaning of the word 'discrimination'". We cannot infer the answer to an empirical question purely by logic. We have to use empirical methods. The empirical data shows quite clearly that the common meaning of the word "discrimination" does not include discrimination against non-humans.
@Rasnaboy: "'speciesism' [...] has been identified as discrimination, which initially did not include it" – As the sources show, the common meaning of "discrimination" still does not include speciesism.
In conclusion: If you want to push for a change of the common meaning of the word "discrimination", that's fine. But you can't do it on Wikipedia. Wikipedia does not establish desired or potential meanings of terms. We write about terms and concepts as they are currently and commonly used. (EDIT: I hope that didn't sound too accusatory. Maybe you'd like the meaning to change, or maybe you believe it already has changed. I don't know. I believe you're trying to improve Wikipedia in good faith, but I also believe you're mistaken about the current common meaning of the word "discrimination" and/or the purpose of Wikipedia. No big deal - we all make mistakes sometimes.) As I said before: Maybe the meaning of the word "discrimination" will change. Maybe in five, fifteen or fifty years it will include other species. But until then, I'd ask that you refrain from trying to change the definition of the word here on Wikipedia.Chrisahn (talk) 14:22, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
I think we are arguing from completely different planes. I can see we cannot come to a consensus right now. Comparing speciesism with two-point discrimination, price discrimination, etc. because they all have the word "discrimination" in it is false analogy (it's like comparing discrimination and indiscrimination, for they both share the term, and coming to a conclusion they are one and the same, funnily though). Also what we argued three months ago and what we do now aren't exactly the same. The former was to reason the removal of items from the discrimination template citing the lack of their mention in the article, while the current one is to exclude the very term from the article's scope. I'm not trying to change any definition or establish anything (WP:NOR doesn't allow these), but only trying to include the widened sense and keep in check the persistent efforts to disestablish what has been established in the literature (such as being hell-bent on deleting the representative picture in the Speciesism article months ago). It's only since the views received so far weren't convincing did I seek an RfC. Let me see if some more opinions are coming in the next few days and then go by what the majority says. Rasnaboy (talk) 05:51, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
"Comparing speciesism with two-point discrimination, price discrimination, etc. because they all have the word "discrimination" in it is false analogy" – I think you're missing the point. Bhagya sri113 wrote: "every mention about speciesism points to discrimination". That may be true, but it's irrelevant. For example, every mention of two-point discrimination points to discrimination, but it's not a form of discrimination in the sense of this article. Every mention of price discrimination points to discrimination, and yet it's usually not considered a form of discrimination in the sense of this article (but see e.g. Gender-based price discrimination in the United States).
"Also what we argued three months ago and what we do now aren't exactly the same" – The essence is the same. In October 2020, we were discussing whether to include speciesism in Template:Discrimination. Now we're discussing whether to include speciesism in Discrimination. That's a rather superficial difference. The salient question remains the same: Does the common meaning of discrimination include speciesism? The answer, as a long list of sources clearly shows, was NO three months ago. And the answer is still NO, because nothing has changed since then.
"persistent efforts to disestablish what has been established in the literature" – You seem to believe that it "has been established in the literature" that the common meaning of the word discrimination includes speciesism. You're wrong. That's the view of a small minority.
"the views received so far weren't convincing" – I have provided lots of sources showing that the common meaning of the word discrimination is discrimination against human beings. You have provided zero sources supporting your claim. I don't see how anyone could find your claim convincing. I'm sure I could provide hundreds of other reliable sources showing that discrimination (absent specific qualifiers and/or context) means discrimination against human beings, but I guess you wouldn't find that convincing either. I guess nothing could convince you.
"go by what the majority says" – See WP:NOTDEMOCRACY. – Chrisahn (talk) 01:20, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
Ahem! You now take the fallacy to the next level. Gender-based price discrimination, for example, is but a form of sexism (you can have various categories under the main one), but speciesism is supposed to be a main category that we are unwilling to acknowledge, the subcategories of which can point to every animal exploitation. Comparing items categorized under different levels, much less comparing speciesism with two-point discrimination et al., involves false analogy fallacy, but in this argument this fallacy is veiled by employing another one—the definist fallacy. All the sources that you provided were from political/social/humanity institutions that generally have zero interest in any discrimination that falls outside of human domain or that does not affect humanity directly. Doesn't this sound like "appeal to authority" or a "biased sample"? What we forget here is to also consider that of a disinterested party, such as a philosopher of ethics or an evolutionary biologist. There we have arguments that categorize speciesism as discrimination. And, by "going by the majority," I meant with the genuine intention of avoiding any impasse just in case we do not reach consensus and not to violate WP:NOTDEMOCRACY. Rasnaboy (talk) 18:37, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
You're largely reiterating what you and Bhagya sri113 said before. You're still missing the point. The salient question is: DOES THE COMMON MEANING OF THE WORD "DISCRIMINATION" INCLUDE NON-HUMANS? As the sources show, the answer is NO, and YOU HAVE PROVIDED ZERO SOURCES that would support the opposite.
You still seem to misunderstand how Wikipedia works. Please read Wikipedia:Core content policies and its related pages thoroughly. We don't write what we think is true, or what a few people think is true. We basically provide a condensed version of what reliable mainstream sources say. That's all. You may call this "appeal to authority". But that's how Wikipedia works. You'll have to get used to it.
This also means that "a philosopher of ethics" or "an evolutionary biologist" doesn't matter. What would matter would be a majority or at least a large minority of philosophers or biologists. Sure, "we have arguments that categorize speciesism as discrimination". But we have many more sources that don't categorize speciesism as discrimination.
IF YOU PROVIDE RELIABLE SOURCES SHOWING THAT THE COMMON MEANING OF THE WORD "DISCRIMINATION" INCLUDES NON-HUMANS (not just what Singer and a couple of others want it to be, but the COMMON MEANING), we could potentially add speciesism to the lede and/or add a section about speciesism. BUT YOU HAVE PROVIDED NO SUCH SOURCES. And as long as you haven't, we can't change the article. That's how Wikipedia works.
And I think that's all I have to say. We've gone back and forth for several days now. I feel it would be a waste of my time to keep reiterating the same points again and again. — Chrisahn (talk) 20:06, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
@User:Chrisahn. I don't see this as a waste of time, but I sincerely apologize if I had wasted yours. More often in history, it would take several centuries, or even millennia, to reach some consensus but every argument put forth in the process have only built the philosophy literature, slowly building consensus. I absolutely understand how Wikipedia works. When did I claim that following Wikipedia policies is "appeal to authority"? I only said going only by the sources that have zero interest in the non-human domains as "appeal to authority" (or even "biased sample" fallacy), and you conveniently strawman my words. I also perfectly understand that you're going by the "common" meaning of discrimination. But speciesism isn't a fringe theory nor is it an opinion of a minority. Even if some of the sources don't use the term "discrimination" in their definitions, still others do. We very much have numerous such sources in the literature (Peter Singer, Gary L. Francione, Tom Regan, Mylan Engel, Melanie Joy, and Richard Ryder, to name a few) (I've mentioned these numerous times in our discussion). These are very much the sources for expanding the definition of discrimination as well (which you accuse me of not providing). While you claim that the "common definition" of discrimination fails to include non-humans, the general definition of speciesism, including dictionary definitions, does call it a discrimination. That said, when we have sources calling speciesism as discrimination, that merits a mention in the article even when it is not the core topic of the article. Hope this is clear now. Rasnaboy (talk) 03:31, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
Notably even sources for speciesism disagree about whether it would constitute discrimination - Merriam Webster defines discrimination in multiple different ways as well. And this is before we get into academic literature (as well as the obvious issue that if people are debating whether or not speciesism is wrong, then logically it can't be defined as discrimination, because then it's wrong by definition. It'd be like debating if triangles have three sides, when that's what they are defined as). Indeed sources even debate as to what it should be defined as (the speciesism page mentions this). Sdio7 (talk) 17:43, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
The debate as to whether or not speciesism is wrong is not between scholars who researched on it but primarily between scholars and others who oppose the "new inclusion". Clarifications for any apparent contradictions between scholars (that you're pointing to) whether it constitutes discrimination are found in the works of fellow scholars who have countered it (as in Singer's argument countered by Engel [Engel, 2000, The moral life: an introductory reader in ethics and literature (pp. 856–890), Oxford University Press]). Terms in a dictionary often have multiple meaning, some even contradicting one another; that shouldn't make us doubt or distort the meaning that the subject on hand is intending, resulting in employing definist fallacy. Rasnaboy (talk) 07:57, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
There's no fallacy. While some say speciesism is a form of discrimination, most people don't think so. From the lede of Speciesism: some definitions of speciesism specifically define it as a form of discrimination or unjustified treatment, while others only define it as differential treatment without specifying whether the treatment is justified or not.Chrisahn (talk) 00:57, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
When I ask you to go by what the original sources claim, you're showing me the "edited" lede of an article as a source for your claim (circular reasoning). How do you come to the conclusion that "most" people don't consider speciesism as discrimination when we have several sources claiming otherwise? Again I'm not asking anyone here to "declare" that speciesism is a discrimination, but only include these claims in the article (that is exactly what the lede sentence I added claim). That is exactly what this very discussion is all about. Rasnaboy (talk) 03:37, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

There is no single common definition, there are dozens of common definitions. As you get more specific and towards more widely accepted criteria, you get into more widely accepted definitions. Probably at the core of them is unequal negative treatment of humans based on what are indisputably innate, un-changable characteristics. So that leaves out discrimination based on actions/behaviors. Oh darn it, so I can't call getting a speeding ticket discrimination against us speeders?  :-) Which means that this article should "clean up it's act" if it wants to start excluding less-accepted meanings.  :-) North8000 (talk) 13:27, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Drug use (again)

Drug use is not usually included in the common meaning of the word "discrimination". All of the top Google search results for "discrimination" list types of discrimination, but none of them mention drug use: [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11]. I'll remove the Discrimination#Drug use section and add a link to Discrimination against drug addicts to the Discrimination#See also section instead. — Chrisahn (talk) 04:29, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Low Quality

This article is so low quality and so badly written it should be deleted. It reeks of American imperialism and exceptionalism. Only the first two sentences of the Etymology section should remain. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2803:9400:3:C0EB:6101:2612:C84F:79B4 (talk) 14:45, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

...and this is why the article is so very needed. Better yet: why not create your own, "separate but equal" page?108.16.138.132 (talk) 22:42, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Discrimination: Putting a Good Word Out of Commission

I was looking up the meaning of the word discriminate to see what synonyms it had and was linked to wikipedia. I thought it was unusual to be referred to this link, so I opened it up to see what it had to say. I was actually surprised, though I know how discrimination is often used. Discrimination has morphed into what this article is expressing. But this isn't the original meaning of discrimination. To discriminate is to recognize a distinction, or to differentiate between two or more things. Even the word prejudice has a different meaning than how it is often used. I know we need to use words to describe the heart of a matter, but I believe the way it is used, not only in this article, but in daily use to describe the vileness of people is putting a good word out of commission. — Preceding unsigned comment added by YanBai (talkcontribs) 17:11, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

See Discrimination#Etymology and Discrimination (information) (the latter is linked in the hatnote). — Chrisahn (talk) 18:00, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

Well I agree that this article has issues in that area. Long term the term has two legit meanings. The one described above plus negative treatment or opinions based on unchangeable attributes of the individual. This article has distorted that to add "negative treatment based on only certain choices of the individual. And in the article the selection which which are the "only certain choices" is determined by current US politics.North8000 (talk) 03:42, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Adding a section for discrimination based on Vaccination Status

The traditional "protected classes" under federal title VII are expanding in some states (most notably Montana) the classes have been expanded to include vaccination status as a protected class under their state law. I think this is an important thing to call out as a new sub item in the discrimination page. According to the current article "Discrimination especially occurs when individuals or groups are unfairly treated in a way which is worse than other people are treated" IE a certain class of people not being able to attend a concert or dine in a restaurant or work out in a gym based on some status (IE vaccination status).

Is this not worthy of addition to this article? My change was edited out. How does this work to add a new section and not have it be immediately deleted?

Existing Passed legislation:

Montana "2021 House Bill 702 (“HB 702”) generally added discrimination on the basis of vaccination status to the Montana Human Rights Act (see Title 49, Chapter 2, Part 3 of the Montana Code Annotated). [1]

Additional Proposed legislation in other states:

Wisconsin Assembly Bill 309 Prohibiting discrimination based on vaccination status: Ref: [2]

Idaho House Bill 140 Prohibits "discrimination against unvaccinated persons" Ref: [3]

Indiana SB 64 Prohibits discrimination against any employee with respect to failing to receive an immunization Ref: [4]

New Jersey Assembly Bill 5607 would prohibit discrimination against individuals who have not received the COVID-19 vaccine: Ref: [5]

Jbkjames (talk) 05:59, 25 November 2021 (UTC) jbkjames

Covering political grandstanding like this smacks of WP:RECENTISM, and if we did cover it here it would need to be based on what secondary sources have to say, not primary citations to legislative bills. MrOllie (talk) 00:15, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Thank you MrOllie for your thoughts and reference to WP:RECENTISM, with the Covid-19 pandemic less than 2 years old and the fact that the first vaccine status based restriction was probably a year after the start that will be challenging, but I think if you look at the outward societal impacts such as discriminatory signage on businesses, sporting arenas with different seating sections in favor of one class vs another there can be a good argument made that we are seeing the biggest outward display of discriminatory (but societal acceptable) behavior IMHO warrants mention in this important entry on discrimination IMHO. In my mind we need to put more emphasis on the visibility of the societal shift to accept discriminatory signage, language, and restrictions than the limited time people have had to write scholarly articles or books on the topic. But I will poll the current state of secondary sources and report back as soon as I have that. I would also appreciate any additional feed back others may be able to offer on this talk idea and suggestion. Jbkjames (talk) 08:09, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Comparing this to Jim Crow is highly offensive. MrOllie (talk) 12:33, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
Apologies MrOllie,I have edited out that comment. Did not mean to sidetrack the discussion. Jbkjames (talk) 20:32, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
Appreciate that feedback MrOllie. I'm still working through available secondary sources to see what's there - give me a few days, obviously I feel differently about it than you do. Curious to get some other feedback as well. Greatly appreciate the dialog sir. Jbkjames (talk) 20:32, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Focus of the article

The above points out what starts to be two main traditional meanings of the term:

  1. One is in essence any form of differentiation / selection. This article is not about that broad topic. E.G discriminating taste regarding music.
  2. The other is negative treatment of people based on an unchangeable trait, e.g. racial discrimination. And this type is widely considered to be bad discrimination and by definition bad discrimination.

In general people seek to expand the latter into whatever suits their worldview or political agenda. For example, they might say that levying penalties for violating immigration laws is discrimination, but not so for violating speed limit laws. As far as what gets included in this article, "RS's" are not going to settle it; in this area you can find ones that say whatever you want or use the term in whatever way that you want. So in short, wikipedia policies and guidelines are not going to settle it. My thought is to recognize that what falls under the narrow definition of #2 would pretty extensively be considered to be bad discrimination and to focus the article accordingly. North8000 (talk) 15:41, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Thank you North8000 for your contribution, in essence I think what you are saying is that there can be debate on things coming in out of of the list but to come up with (or agree) on a litmus test of what is considered for inclusion as "bad discrimination" for the twelve subsections of section 3. There is no argument from me that discrimination based on vaccination status would not be on the same level as the other protected federal protected classes, but in my mind it's a thing to be covered under the broad category of discrimination in this wiki somewhere. If there is a suggestion for another article I'm opened to that as well.
Are there other traits here on the list that one could argue are changeable? Language, Name, Nationality, or Religion for example? If your reason for excluding vaccination status from the list is because it's changeable and the others are not - one could argue that we need to remove a few other items no?
   3.1 Age
   3.2 Caste 
   3.3 Disability 
   3.4 Language 
   3.5 Name
   3.6 Nationality
   3.7 Race or ethnicity
   3.8 Region 
   3.9 Religious beliefs 
   3.10 Sex, sex characteristics, gender, and gender identity 
   3.11 Sexual orientation  
   3.12 Reverse discrimination
   3.13 [if it was to be included] Vaccination Status 
I am a newbie here, but obviously feel passionate that this topic should be included in this article, . Feedback from the wiki community on this topic appreciated. IE "Who gets to decide what classes are worthy of inclusion in this article"? Jbkjames (talk) 20:32, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

So far the most respected academic paper discussion on the topic (the publisher claims all articles are double-blind peer-reviewed) I've found is from last year's World Conference of the Social Sciences if anyone is interested in that is can be found here: https://www.dpublication.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/36-20245.pdf

Their conclusion says:

"This research has provided us with understanding of an additional type of discrimination, which has evolved recently as a new social phenomenon. The specificity of vaccination status discrimination has mirrored in new patterns of people’s interaction, which can be added to the basics of the social theory."

Maybe a new subsection called "emerging new potential types of discrimination" or vs adding it to the list in section 3? Jbkjames (talk) 20:32, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

I purposely made it a separate section because I truly meant it for the article as a whole, not specifically for vaccination status. Answering the latter part of your question, by my proposed idea, we would remove "Discrimination against refugees, asylum seekers, migrants and internally displaced persons" and would tend to weigh in against including vaccination status. But to answer more generically, I would treat vaccination status the same as refugees, asylum seekers, migrants and internally displaced persons" which are currently in the article. North8000 (talk) 20:59, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
I moved the section "Discrimination against refugees, asylum seekers, migrants and internally displaced persons" to Racial discrimination#Discrimination against refugees, asylum seekers, migrants and internally displaced persons. It was too specific for this overview article.
Regarding vaccination: No common definition of discrimination mentions "vaccination status", so it doesn't belong in this overview article. (And of course, "discrimination against people who don't want to get vaccinated" is just as silly as "discrimination against people who don't want to stop at red lights". Sanctioning people whose unreasonable behavior negatively affects others is not discrimination.) – Chrisahn (talk) 23:28, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
P.S.: For comparison, see Talk:Discrimination/Archive 2#Adding Species section, Talk:Discrimination/Archive 2#Drug use (again) and many other previous discussions that were also (at least to a large part) about the scope of this article. — Chrisahn (talk) 23:41, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
Appreciate your feedback Chrisahn, people who don't want to stop at red lights are not excluded as a class of people from sporting events, restaurants or gyms via signage unvaccinated people are. IMHO there's a slight difference in treatment there. All additional feedback on this topic is welcomed to understand the consensus of opinion on if and where vaccination status should end up (if anywhere). Jbkjames (talk) 17:24, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
People who aren't wearing shirts are regularly excluded from stores and restaurants, but this is not discrimination because there is an action they could take to gain admittance. MrOllie (talk) 18:38, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
People who don't want to stop at red lights are excluded as a class of people from driving cars. But this is veering into WP:TALKNO / WP:NOTFORUM, and we should stop here. Bye! — Chrisahn (talk) 02:51, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

My point and example was that the word is so fluid that the possible scope is infinite and that perhaps a focus of the article could be negative treatment based on unchangeable traits. Otherwise one could end up with "based on choices and behaviors that are in fashion at the moment." North8000 (talk) 20:57, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

  • This entire discussion is WP:NOTFORUM. We do not decide what discrimination is, we take a look at sources that offer an overview on the subject and report what they say. Take the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry... no mention of vaccines, but a long discussion of indirect discrimination, which is not even discussed in the article. (t · c) buidhe 21:09, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
This is a discussion on the scope of this Wikipedia article. And in light of the fact that in sources and elsewhere, the scope of the word "discrimination" is near-infinite.North8000 (talk) 21:28, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 30 October 2018 and 11 December 2018. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Rachelma114.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 19:35, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 7 January 2019 and 25 April 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Alyssa Colvin.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 20:08, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Discussion of Holocaust

Hi, I noticed that the article says the Nazi discrimination that Jews faced is of a religious type, and I want to point out that overwhelmingly, Nazis discriminated against Jews based on centuries-old tropes and conspiracy theories. Even converts out of Judaism were not safe, since certain degrees of hybridization across generations ("blood quantum") were also targeted. The nature was primarily ethnic discrimination and national discrimination. To put it how living Jews put it these days, "the Nazis didn't ask if we went to shul or ignore us if we didn't wear our kippot".

The religious discrimination part of the page can include religious persecution based on primarily Christian and Islamic libels and tropes with regards to Jews, the elimination of whole sects of pagan followings by Christians, or even Islamophobia during the "War On Terror", but the information about the Holocaust on this page needs to be amended to reflect information found about antisemitism tropes, stereotypes, and canards. Whoopi Goldberg made the tragic mistake on The View, around January 31st 2022, of assuming the Holocaust wasn't based in discrimination towards the perceived race and ethnicity of Jews. 2603:8001:CE40:2E00:D0D4:B187:6F4:5FC0 (talk) 02:00, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

Religious discrimination based off perceived misinterpretations of aspects of a religion is still religious discrimination. E.g., to discriminate against Christians on the basis of a belief that all Christians are biblical literalists would still be religious discrimination, despite the discrimination based on misinterpretation (tropes and conspiracy theories) of the religion. Nazi discrimination against Jews was certainly religious discrimination. I am a Leaf (talk) 21:26, 29 April 2023 (UTC)