Color me black, color me brown, color me pink

We all hope for an ideal world, one where prejudice and discrimination are but vestiges of a bygone era and colors are but wonderful creation of nature and not a label for the tint of your skin. But, as Tom Hanks would say in the movie “Philadelphia”, which tackled discrimination against HIV-afflicted gays, “we don’t live in that world”.

Discrimination and prejudice is a reality that has been there since the dawn of civilization only it came by in other names. It was considered normal and acceptable behavior, that is until men realized its deathly and disastrous results. The history of man has borne witness to the bloody consequences of individuals who have imposed their prejudiced views on many. The Holocaust. Genocide in Rwanda. Ethnic cleansing in the Serbian conflict. Apartheid. Bloody suppression of the natives by colonizers. There where the belief of being above other fellow men, has bred this twin scourge. So many have died whose only sin was to have been born of the wrong color or of having professed a different faith.

But not all forms of discrimination can be as extreme as the blights in human history. It may come in the most subtle of manner. There is the timeless great divide between rich and poor, of the intellectual snobbishness of the educated and the belief of superiority of race. It may also come in the dogmatic view of the existence of only two genders and any sexual orientation different from the physical self an aberration. So many of us shudder and make the sign of the cross after hearing such senseless deaths all victims of discrimination, yet haven’t we been guilty of practicing such in our own different ways. We are guilty when we treat our own hired help like lesser beings; we are guilty when we deny enrolment to children of unwed mothers flaunting moral high ground as a reason for acting so; we are guilty when we laugh at the “monkey” English of our fellow Filipinos, false pride of our American accents and diction; we are guilty when we judge a person’s worth based on her appearance without bothering to know them better; we are guilty when we refuse admittance to gays and transsexuals because they allegedly tarnish our establishment’s image; we are guilty when we mock the mentally ill instead of affording them the care and understanding that they sorely need. The list goes on and on and on. Harmless they may seem at first but we should not forget, out of the seeds of hatred and prejudice have sprung demagogues who have called for cleansing of people not of their kind. Where this cleansing is not of the hygienic kind but the Final solution, death and wiping out of an entire race.

Have we learned the lessons of history? Have we become more kind, understanding and tolerant of our differences? The answer to that lies in a close examination of our hearts, for therein lies the answer as well. Shame can only make us bow our heads but it does not bring about a real change. But a true change of heart is what makes us accept, that the world indeed is full of men of different shades. But yet they are no different from you and me and that we are all beautiful creatures of God, that we all deserve the same place under the sun.