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Connor Norton Parkview Ms. Black First Place (tie) Discrimination Essay Discrimination is something that can happen to anyone, and everyone needs to take action to try to stop it. People discriminate against each other based on certain stereotypes. They see others as different, as lower forms of life. I have been discriminated against a number of times because I have a learning disorder. When this happens, I could just shrug it off knowing it really doesn't matter, realizing that someone who says nasty things probably has his or her own insecurities he or she can't deal with in a good way. L�ut it still hurts. There will always be discrimination in the world until everyone learns to take action to stop people from hating each other so they can learn how to get along. Discrimination is about power. Someone who discriminates wants to feel more powerful than their victim, so the discriminator makes the other suffer in some way. To have someone bring up something about you that is embarrassing or degrading is a reason for that person to feel more powerful. People discriminate based on another person's race, sex, color of skin, religion, intelligence, political affiliation, social status, and so on. Anything that makes a person different from someone else could be a basis for that person to be discriminated against. I know that some people like to discriminate against people with learning disorders because they make fun of ine. I have Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism. Because of my autisn�, I have certain limits. People have noticed those limits, so they give me a hard time by making fun of ine. Last year, an $t�' grader started calling me a "retard" on the bus. A couple of times he kicked me and he also punched me. I know what it is like to be called nasty names and to be hurt, because I have been discriminated against. To stop discrimination against myself, I could speak up. I could also ask the person who is doing the discriminating to think about how he would feel if he was discriminated against. If I see someone else being discriminated against, I could tell the person who is talking trash to back of£ I could ask what the person he was yelling at had ever done to him. I could tell the discriminator that no one deserves to'be hurt because they are too black, too duir�b, too nerdy or too whatever. Everyone deserves to be treated with respect. There are many types of discrimination and discrimination will always be present in the world unless we learn to get along. In the face of discrimination we need to say, "I'm not afraid of you and nothing you say or do will ever scarc me." Discrimination is really all about power and those �uho will do anything to have power. Once a discriminator knows that thcy can't take a person's power because that person refuses to be aCraid, the discrimination will end.