I Am Fascinated By Human Behavior
So as a white heterosexual male who is nominally christian, situations where I experience discrimination or prejudice are (thankfully) nearly nonexistent. However the other day I experienced for the first time what it feels like to be the object of discrimination.
So what happened was a group of Jehovahs Witnesses knocked on the door and I've tried so many times before to get them to just give up and move on, from saying i'm not religious, to saying i'm an atheist to saying i'm a practicing anglican. I once even tried saying I was Catholic and had received Communion. None of these have ever worked so this time I tried a different tact, I said I'm Jewish. It's funny coz I hadn't planned on this or thought out the fact that if they quizzed me on it I would be caught out immediately as I know nothing about Judaism.
But it was the strangest thing, all of a sudden the lady folded her arms across her chest, her whole demeanour changing and she very quickly wrapped up talking to me and said, well goodbye.
You know it wasn't even a big deal but I just felt like soiled somehow afterwards, I can't really explain it. It's certainly not because I lied, I'm a big admirer of anyone who can outright lie and pull it off. But it was just I suppose the way someone suddenly treated me differently not because anything about me had changed, all that had changed was the lady's perception of me, now thinking i was jewish, and because of that, was treated differently.
I dunno, I'm sure like such a small encounter in the greater scheme of things was so mundane it's barely worth writing about but for the first time, I kinda knew how Jews, or Black people or Gays feel..... kinda a pretty lame feeling.
So what happened was a group of Jehovahs Witnesses knocked on the door and I've tried so many times before to get them to just give up and move on, from saying i'm not religious, to saying i'm an atheist to saying i'm a practicing anglican. I once even tried saying I was Catholic and had received Communion. None of these have ever worked so this time I tried a different tact, I said I'm Jewish. It's funny coz I hadn't planned on this or thought out the fact that if they quizzed me on it I would be caught out immediately as I know nothing about Judaism.
But it was the strangest thing, all of a sudden the lady folded her arms across her chest, her whole demeanour changing and she very quickly wrapped up talking to me and said, well goodbye.
You know it wasn't even a big deal but I just felt like soiled somehow afterwards, I can't really explain it. It's certainly not because I lied, I'm a big admirer of anyone who can outright lie and pull it off. But it was just I suppose the way someone suddenly treated me differently not because anything about me had changed, all that had changed was the lady's perception of me, now thinking i was jewish, and because of that, was treated differently.
I dunno, I'm sure like such a small encounter in the greater scheme of things was so mundane it's barely worth writing about but for the first time, I kinda knew how Jews, or Black people or Gays feel..... kinda a pretty lame feeling.
