Discrimination

My sweet, naive 15-year old daughter is a member of Amnesty International.

So I asked her the other day, "As a member of Amnesty, you're against discrimination, right?"

She vigorously nodded her head.

I added, "....discrimination based on race......"

She kept nodding eagerly.

".....or gender....."

More nodding.

".....or age."

At this point she got a somewhat foolish grin on her face as she sensed where the conversation was heading.

"So if you're against discrimination based on gender and age, that means I can hang out with you and your friends. Great! We'll have a blast!"

Question: are Amnesty members in particular, and liberals in general, really against discrimination based on such "superficialities" as race and gender and age? Or are they only opposed to discrimination against certain designated victims?

Answer: (not needed)

My point, of course, is that we all discriminate. If we didn't, teenagers would hang out with folks at the old age home, women would have to compete against men in the Olympics, and billionaires would date ordinary-looking women. Oh, and rich white liberals would buy homes in poor black neighborhoods. But none of these things happen. And we don't even really notice it, because we take such types of "discrimination" for granted, so much so that the above concepts strike us as utterly ridiculous, even annoying.

So people who say they're against discrimination aren't really against discrimination, since they do it themselves: they're just for paying lip service against certain types of politically incorrect discrimination.

And yes, I understand that "ageism" has never been foremost among liberal causes. It's only brought up here to make my point.

A few days later my daughter explained to me that while she and her friends don't discriminate on the basis of age, they do practice "coolness discrimination." So I was excluded on that count.

Well, I guess she's not always that sweet.