Of course, racial discrimination is not uncommon in the world at all. Racial discrimination occurs at the global, regional, national and local levels. Racial discrimination occurs in a variety of economic, social and other areas including employment, services, goods, facilities, housing accommodation, contracts and membership in trade and vocational associations in many countries. Indeed, many are deprived of their deserving opportunities in economic, social, political and other terms and are harassed because of their nationality, color, ethnicity and other racial attributes. Moreover, there are racially discriminatory attitudes and racial discrimination based on racial attributes not only in less developed countries but also in developing and developed countries.
Racial discrimination is a concept that indicates any discrimination based on racial attributes such as nationality, color and ethnicity. Of course, racial discrimination can be based on other attributes including faith based attributes and someone’s belonging to a certain group. Of course, racial discrimination can occur directly and indirectly. Direct racial discrimination occurs when someone is treated worse than another person in a similar situation because of any racial attribute. For instance, if someone cannot buy something, even if one has money or other things needed for buying it, because of racial attributes, this would be direct race discrimination. But indirect racial discrimination occurs when an organization has a particular policy or a way of working that is applied to all but disadvantages a certain group of people.
Of course, providing opportunities based on merits and any other justified qualification is not racial discrimination, even if it goes against a certain racial attribute. For example, a white may get a job or any other opportunity because he/she may be the most qualified among all the candidates. In this case, if any black, Asian or person with other racial attributes does not get the opportunity, it cannot be termed as racial discrimination. But it is certainly racial discrimination if an Asian does not get the deserving education, job or any other opportunity because of the regionality of the origin or any other racial attributes including nationality, even if he/she is the most qualified among all the candidates. Similarly, if a person does not get the opportunity within a country because of his/her minority status, it is racial discrimination.
No doubt, racial discrimination is a very old problem in the world, though it can take new forms in different contexts. Consequently, there are considerable efforts to end racial discrimination across countries around the world. Some notable efforts include constitutional, legal and policy based governmental measures, especially for providing opportunity without any discrimination based on racial attributes. Moreover, many organizations including the United Nations, non-government organizations and human rights organizations are working on ending racial discrimination across countries. Such organizations are not only providing opportunities to different races, colors and ethnic groups but also promoting non-discriminatory attitudes across countries. Although such efforts have reduced racial discrimination to a considerable extent across countries, racial discrimination is not reduced to an acceptable level.
Thus, more needs to be done to make sure that discrimination is ended based on nationality, ethnicity and other racial attributes. In this respect, the implementation of anti-racial laws and policies is very important. Of course, emphasis needs to be given to ending racial discrimination at the local, national and global levels. At the global level, more emphasis needs to be given to ending racial discrimination based on regionality and nationality. Indeed, many are deprived of deserving opportunities because of their nationality, especially at the global level. For this, international and global institutions need to be strengthened to make sure that there is no chance of racial discrimination, especially regarding opportunities or facilities. No less important is that justification is needed when there is indirect racial discrimination.
But along with measures for providing deserving opportunities regardless of racial attributes, emphasis needs to be given to changing racial attitudes and addressing the reasons for racial attitudes across countries around the world. While institutional measures can help to reduce the chance of racial discrimination in terms of providing deserving opportunities regardless of racial attributes at the institutional level, attitudinal change can help to reduce racial discrimination from the individual level. No doubt, racial attitude, which is rendered as socially constructed, leads to racially discriminatory actions. Thus, emphasis needs to be given to measures for addressing the social construction of racial attitudes and changing racial attitudes.
