One would think that everybody agrees that discrimination is a type of behavior that does more harm than good only harm. Who wants to be discriminated against, after all? As a woman, do you like to see how men get the job, or the promotion? As a black, Muslim, Latin person, do you like being seen by your peers as a potential threat even if you just went out to jog, or the grocery store bag you are carrying contains groceries instead of a feared bomb? As an elder person, do you like it when you are constantly passed by because people think you are too weak or useless, or that you've reached your expiration date and all you do now with your time is wait for death? As a person with diminished capabilities, do you like it when people forget that you still can do things just like they do, and the lack of mobility, vision, hearing or any other skill or sense doesn't revoke your "human membership"? As a gay, lesbian, bisexual, transexual person, do you like being treated by others like you are a ravenous creature lurking in the dark looking forward to spread your curse on others? Of course we don't, or at least we are supposed not to like it.
However more often than not we find it that people are rid with preconceived ideas, prejudice and spread discrimination around themselves like a veneral disease in a college party orgy. I often find it quite ironic how Christians insist time and again on preaching about being discriminated by "the world" and how the world is around them, when here where Christianism is the official religion of many countries, Christians are the ones doing the ruthless discriminating, seeking to eliminate the last trace of any other religion "in their turf", as well as any sort of thinking or behavior that doesn't agree with traditions predating the Middle Ages. In this times, however, there's much more information, and freedom of speech, as well as the philosophical freedom isn't as prosecuted as before, though I wouldn't go as far as sy that you won't be burned on a stake for speaking out your mind, or breaking convention and fighting against discrimination.
In the fight against discrimination the attacks from those trying to break down the barriers come actually from the ones being defended. Black people fight to get the same rights white people have, but when the first white people start approaching them, treating them as equals and start the normal cultural exchange (you know, we learn from you, you learn from us), they often walk into reversed discrimination. Women apply reversed discrimination against men who accept them as equals and want to fight by our side for our full equality. People from minority religions mistreat those of mainstream religion, who try to get closer to them, learn about them. There are even cases of gay people mistreating straight people who come closer to them, accept them for who they are. It's like some people - used to being discriminated - wouldn't accept the end of discrimination because that means that their system of facilities would break. If women are no longer discriminated, then not getting a promotion can't be blamed on "because I'm woman and that man is discriminating me", or not being elegible for a loan can't be blamed on "because I'm Latin, and they think all I do is stealing". The end of discrimination means that you also have to stop relying on your well working excuses, and actually work for what you want.
Some hateful people, practice reverse discrimination because they believe they are naturally entitled to "give back" the harm done to them, or the harm done to their ancestors, or whatever crap like that. Dude, think: just as you are no longer a slave, the white person next to you is no longer a slave owner. Like you've never been a slave, the white folk has never been a slaveowner. Just as you've never been denied the right to vote, the guy next to you has never denied you the right to vote.
Allegedly, to stop discrimination, we should get close to the groups we discriminated, and promote such an exchange in our societies. However this is a two way process: both parties must be accepting of each other and willing to come to terms to make living together as smooth as possible.
Reversed discrimination is discrimination too, and the only purpose of it is to keep up the very system it is supposed to be reacting against.
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