Source: Geralt/Pixabay

Background

On June 26, the Supreme Court upheld ’s travel ban (a ban which targets mostly people from majority-Muslim countries). Only time will tell if this travel ban will make America safer (and at what price), but meanwhile the ban is likely to make life harder for those who have families and relatives in US, and ones who are escaping dictatorial regimes around the world— of making it to US to start a new life free from repression and . The ban could also hurt people inside the borders, those who trace their origins to one of the countries on the ban list and who have family and friends there. And it can be seen as normalizing and institutionalizing the discrimination that they already face.

Is the travel ban really discriminatory?

Imagine someone named Maya is hosting a party at her house and has invited many people, including Mr. Trump. Everyone is given a chance to speak as long as they would like, except Mr. Trump, who is constantly interrupted and silenced. Is Maya discriminating against Mr. Trump? It depends.

Maya might have believed, for good reason (e. ., based on previous interactions), that Mr. Trump was planning to say something inflammatory and offensive to other guests, and given that she wanted her guests to feel good and be happy, she decided to interrupt Mr. Trump whenever he seemed to be headed for insulting others.

But let us imagine other possibilities. Maya may have prevented Mr Trump from speaking because of a personal prejudice against, say, men.

Or Germans and people of German descent.

Or older folks.

Which of these possibilities, do you think, would qualify as discrimination? And can you see the parallels between this example and the travel ban?

Source: Thisabled

What is discrimination?

Let me be more clear on what discrimination means. Discrimination refers to unfair treatment of someone because of the person’s membership in certain group.

One of the founders of psychology, the American psychologist Gordon Allport, defined discrimination in this way:

“Discrimination comes about only when we deny to individuals or groups of people equality of treatment which they may wish. It occurs when we take steps to exclude members of an out-group from our neighborhood, school, occupation, or country.”1

But someone might argue that, since everyone can be considered part of some group, we can not criticize or discipline anybody lest we be accused of discrimination. But that is not true. Of course we can, but as long as we are dealing with an individual’s harmful actions only.

For example, if someone has committed a and is responsible for some harm—be it involving a school shooting, armed robbery, gang violence, assault, rape, murder, elder or , political violence, war crime, etc—we have the right to ask to bring this person to justice. That is not discriminatory because the focus is on the harm the person has caused and not on the person’s , faith, beliefs, views, appearance, , political orientation, /race, and so on.

Concluding thoughts

Many Americans, including Muslims and Arabs, already face considerable discrimination. According to some studies, Arabs and Muslims often underreport these incidents.2 The travel ban is likely to worsen the situation, given that they are now even less inclined to believe that sharing these incidents with government officials would be helpful.

I should note that many Americans (not targeted by the ban) have been critical of the ban and have voiced their opinions. That is encouraging. Because while bans and acts of discrimination result in rejection and exclusion of “others,” such acts of understanding and compassion (such as showing support for immigrants and minorities) help bridge the us/them gap.

Source: WikiImages/Pixabay

There is a sense of freedom and respect in being treated equally. The person who receives equal treatment is more inclined to respect others and cooperate with them toward reaching common . People who understand this, know the importance of treating others equally.

But those who do not understand this basic aspect of human psychology or do not care about the consequences of mistreating others will probably create more problems in the long run than they are trying to fix at present. And those problems will likely affect us all.