Discrimination is a disease. It is a disease that has plagued humans, especially minorities, as long as human interaction has existed. It leaves no people unharmed and sometimes even kills. It corrupts the minds of the many and scars the minds of the few. The plague comes in any forms, ranging from small remarks, to ethnic persecution. Discrimination is a problem that negatively affects people of all cultures all around the world, and like a disease, it needs to be eradicated.
The book “Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini illustrates discrimination with the treatment of the Hazara. The Hazara are a minority group in Afghanistan often discriminate against. The local bully in the story, Assef, torments a boy named Hassan, and his father, because they are Hazara. Assef taunts, “hey, you flat nosed babulu, who did you eat today? Tell us you slant eyed donkey!’(Hosseini 31) He picks on their ethnic traits and characterizes them as monsters. Assef believes that his race, the Pashtuns are “the true afghans, the pure afghans, not this flat nose here” and that the Hazara “pollute our homeland’ (Hosseini 33). He sees Hassan as lesser, dirty even, simply because of his race. The treatment of the Hazara didn’t improve much in Afghanistan, as after they took control of Afghanistan the Taliban “massacred the Hazaras in Mazar-i-sharif” (Hosseini 182).
Richard Rodriguez shines light on another form of discrimination in “The Hunger of Memory”. Rodriguez describes how when people meet him,
Afghanistan is a culture-rich land consisting of many ethnic tribes. The largest of these groups is the Pashtun tribe which constitutes an estimated 40% to 55% of Afghanistan’s total population. The third largest group in the country is the Hazara tribe which comprise between 15% of the population (Barfield 26). Historically, the Hazara people have been largely persecuted by other tribes in Afghanistan. In Martin Ewan’s book, Afghanistan: A Short History of Its People and Politics, he writes, “There has in the past been little love lost between [the Hazaras] and other Afghans, who despise them on both religious and racial grounds, while they themselves have a particular hatred
Discrimination is when someone has a bias opinion on a specific crowd of people due to their race, sex, religion, or order of rank. This basically goes hand in hand with the phrase judging a book by its cover meaning the person with the negative opinion will not give the other individual a fair chance for the reason being they are being stereotypical and not thinking of the other person’s talent, or character. A modern day example of discrimination would be if a male employer were to compensate a female employee a lower pay due to her gender. At some time in everyone’s life due to today society, we have all been victimized by discrimination. Whether it may be a dirty look from a random person, or the way you dress, talk, and even look.
Discrimination is prevalent in the story “To Kill a Mockingbird”, the most obvious being the excessive amount of racism (Lee). Racism is the easiest to see but there are more forms of discrimination (Lee). Boo Radley is ostracized from the community when truly nobody really knows him (Lee). People discriminate Scout for being a tomboy not a lady (Lee). The last one that no one ever thinks about is how reverse racism is seen when people threaten Atticus for defending Tom Robinson in court (Lee). Discrimination in any form is a controversial topic but everyone knows that it is not right to discriminate against people.
Millions of people around the world are discriminated against, but Hazaras and Shias especially know the struggle of this, constantly being put at the bottom of the social class and knowing unfair treatment all too well. In The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, the act of discrimination is portrayed throughout the novel and is the cause of many of the main events that occur in the novel. Hassan, a hare-lipped Hazara boy in the novel, feels the pain and torture of simply being who he was and endures the hardships of his ethnicity, but yet he never complains or wishes to change who he is, symbolizing his bravery. Therefore, discrimination and slander towards Hazaras in the novel gives a strong sense of unequalness among the two ethnicities, Pashtuns and Hazaras, and is not considered virtuous among societies today.
Discrimination has many meaning and many different ways people can discriminate against others. Discriminations can be as simple as a person making a judgment against someone else by the way they dress or the way they speak or it can be the people are discriminated (out casted/left out) because they choose to be different or have a disability or different colour of skin or even religion. Discrimination is unfair treatment of a person action based on prejudice.
Discrimination is treating someone differently, often unfairly, because he/she is a part of a specific group, class or category of people. For instance, a girl named Wu Qing in China was discriminated against and could not find a job because how her body was a bit chubby and the scars in her face from an accident in her early childhood. Even though she was kind and used to be straight-A student, she had no friends. Now, she is looking for selling her kidney in order to pay the plastic surgery fee. Discrimination can change a person from innocent to evil is an important theme in the novel “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley. Even though
In Afghanistan, there is a divide between the Pashtuns and the Hazaras; the Pashtuns are upper class citizens who are treated with respect while the Hazaras are lower class, minority citizens who are treated poorly. Because of the contrasting history of the two groups, their responses to the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul were complete opposites. The Pashtuns “danced on [the] street,” (Hosseini 200) while the Hazaras cried “God help the Hazaras now” (Hosseini 213). The conflict between the Pashtuns and Hazaras in “The Kite Runner” directly reflects the real life issues in Afghanistan starting in the late 70’s and continuing on past 2001.
Unfortunately due to our past history, discrimination had been among us from since decades. Discrimination and prejudice would probably be among us until the end of the world. Prejudice and discrimination is an action that treats people unfairly because of their membership in a particular social group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs to rather on that individual. It is an unfair treatment to a person, racial group, and minority. It is an action based on prejudice.
Discrimination displayed throughout The Kite Runner Discrimination is something that should never happen no one should ever be singled out because of age, sex, or race. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini is a novel that includes two boys named Amir and Hassan, Hassan is the son of Ali, Amir's father's servant, the boys used to spend their days kite fighting in the peaceful city of Kabul that eventually turned chaotic when the taliban took control of Afghanistan. In The Kite Runner, Hazaras, like Hassan are constantly discriminated against by Pashtuns like Amir. Pashtuns treat Hazaras as if they are second class citizens or property.
Discrimination not only affects individual in our society, who are not given the same life chances as everyone else but is also affects society itself.
Racism and discrimination were incredibly prominent in Afghanistan at the time of the writing/publishing of The Kite Runner and is still prominent today, not only in some parts of Afghanistan but also around the world. No matter how much the modern world molds their views to become more and more open and tolerant, people still discriminate against others due to their looks and beliefs. Hosseini portrays these conditions of racism and discrimination in The Kite Runner through interactions between Amir and his ‘servant’ friend Hassan, and also through interactions between Hassan and others, who is often the victim of racist actions and dialogue. The socioeconomic conditions in Afghanistan during this time show the inequality between the majority (Sunni Muslims/Pashtuns in this case) and the minority (Shi’a Muslims/Hazaras) and how people discriminate against each other based on how they look and what their religious beliefs are.
Through acts of wage discrimination against the USWNT in the United States and the discrimination against Hazaras in Afghanistan, both countries have discriminated against certain citizens. Both countries have stripped people of their basic human right, the right from discrimination. The USWNT does not get nearly as much as the USMNT, and it’s unfair. In The Kite Runner the novel exemplifies the mistreatment of Hazaras. Every person is born with basic human rights that they deserve. This does not matter the race, age, sex, or where they come from. Everyone is equal and deserves to not be discriminated against because they are a woman or a
In Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner, we (the readers) are given a first hand look at the marginalization and discrimination of a group of people in Afghanistan through the characters of Hassan and his father Ali. Hassan and Ali are Hazaras (the minority ethnic group), and also Shi'a Muslims (the minority religion). For centuries, Hazaras have been discriminated against and oppressed in Afghanistan. Hassan and Ali experience this marginalization and discrimination in their hometown of Kabul. In Chapter 2, Amir describes how the Pashtun children in the town would ridicule Ali and explains how the Hazara ethnic group was marginalized, excluded, and silenced in Afghanistan.
For centuries, society has been plagued with the sickness that is discrimination. People have taken it upon themselves to have the right to discriminate against others, basing their prejudice on parts of others that they themselves cannot control such as age, race or gender. From past to present, many have faced segregation and the damaging ripple effect it has on their lives. This is especially true for minorities in the world who are singled out and treated as inferiors based on physical traits. The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, explores in depth the discrimination that has infected the Afghan culture and the catastrophic effects they have of citizens. The novel scrutinizes the Afghani culture in Afghanistan and delves into the
Hosseini puts an emphasis on the presence of class discrimination in Afghanistan where the Pashtuns are the pure class that dominates over the minority group of Hazaras and the poor in the society. The novel reveals the violence and cruelty predominant in the society against the weak in the society. In fact, people cannot get married in another class that is not of their status and the Hazaras are the most affected class in the story. The Hazaras (people from the low class) are degraded, and this is evident with the emotional, physical, psychological abuse they get from the Pashtuns (Bloom 46). The minority group from the Hazaras is violated by the upper class who are the Pashtuns because they are powerless. A good example is that of Amir and Hassan whereby Amir had established a class distinction between them because his friend was from the minority group and he was the son of a wealthy businessperson in Kabul. Hassan and his father were treated like servants from a low