It’s a good thing this website is dedicated to writer’s personal opinions! To be blatantly honest, I couldn’t decide between the two choices! Neither one is any better than the other. So, lets start my little opinion piece off with one detail about ME. I am a 35 year old white woman that was raised in an African-American city. This means that my perceptions of the entire issue may be off a bit. You see, growing up I was the minority…when I was at my mom’s house. When I was at my dad’s it was quite the opposite. Two totally different lifestyles rolled into one teenage girl’s life! I’ve seen the discrimination inflicted upon many different people…from the oriental, to the blacks and even those who are gay. It’s a never ending cycle that will never change - no matter how hard anyone tries.

Why did I choose sexism over racism? I really can’t answer that…and I’m not going to try. All I plan on doing is telling you why I feel both categories suffer equally! The only difference is that the victims of racism have been suffering A LOT longer than the victims of sexism. Going to a city school, not many of my friends were white. I’ve experienced more respect and consideration from the African-American kids I’ve encountered growing up. They were my friends and I held onto that. I would be right there beside them, defending the racial slurs they had to bear. I couldn’t imagine having to be ridiculed like that my entire life! It’s so disrespectful and degrading! Most of my friends just shrugged it off and went about their business…but, it infuriated me. Sometimes I think other people’s ignorance made me angrier than it made my friends!

Now, as for the sexism side of things…that was thrown in my face at a young age too. My mom is gay. So, I am putting sexual discrimination into the same category as sexism. I remember going into work sometimes with my mom when I was little. She managed a magazine publishing company - they were Civil War publications. It was so much fun…maybe that’s where I got my desire to want to write. Anyway, after 20 years of loyal service they had to let my mom go. They told her that they were downsizing…I knew that was a lie. Comments about her lifestyle were tossed around the office constantly. Her gay friends that worked there were also out of a job over the years. I asked her to file a lawsuit after I found out that the company kept her position and filled with someone that they could pay less to. She refused and it made me so angry. To this day, I still feel she should have done something - anything! They conveniently let her go just short of being able to collect her retirement. Sounded fishy to me!

My mom’s decision was to run away from the problem. At least that’s how I see it! She decided to apply for other jobs that were 3000 miles away from here. Now, she lives in Arizona…has a new group of friends…and no family there with her! Maybe she did it for personal reasons - maybe she didn’t. All I do know, is that until people start standing up against any type of discrimination, nothing will change! As a society, we should start trying to fix things instead of coming up with new ways to categorize them.

Racism…sexism…ageism…the list can keep going and going. Let’s just place it all in the one group it belongs in - DISCRIMINATION! And let me tell you, any type of discrimination is wrong…no matter what title you give it!