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Blogs by Paul Cuenco
Discrimination
2/25/2012 7:57:00 PM
When I was in college, I was best friends with a Greek and a white lady whose name escaped me now. We enjoyed each other’s company. We were classmates in most of the classes and we would study together, all the time. I was also new to the area for I just migrated from Chicago. This was at the University of San Francisco.
One day, when we were discussing some issues, she mentioned something I can’t recall anymore, which was hurtful. When I was far younger, I was super sensitive and anything small was treated as if it was big. I had this policy that I shall never forgive those who crossed me. So, I did not forgive her for her transgression. My Greek friend begged that I forgive her but it was all for naught. She asked to be forgiven, and still I did not.
Certainly, there were many things in life that crossed our path and offended us. This might have happened many years ago, even centuries ago. Muslims vs. Christians. Protestants vs. Catholics. Democracy vs. Communism. It was like slighting a prince by another prince and war was created because of this slight. If I were a prince (god forbid), I could have started a war with this princess for an offense I could never more recall.
In my first trip to Europe, I was riding a train into Rome and there were two Italians arguing about something. I tried understanding what the fuss was all about but I didn’t know any Italian. So, I asked them in English what they were arguing about. It was not the topic that struck me but who they were. The girl was communist. A Communist! My mind revolved around this premise that I actually met a communist. Was it possible? I guess, because my world was so insular, I would never have met someone who opposed my beliefs had I not traveled. I had this belief that they were not at all humans; that they were from somewhere far beyond this galaxy. But reality struck me that I met a communist. And through the years, I began to realize that there were other people who believe in something completely different from ours. I began to accept this fact.
Back when I was a kid, there was this kid who just went into our neighborhood. He played alone and I befriended him. He was this child who did not have any t-shirt on, who was thin and who was quiet. I learned that he was Muslim. They moved in the neighborhood just a month or so. My young mind could not comprehend why he would be in our midst. When I was in Zamboanga, the southern Philippines, I thought that we were special because we would always stay up in the balcony of the movie theater. I was told that the Muslims stayed at the orchestra. We were from a different tribe when we were in the south and had the right to travel anywhere we wish. But in Manila, how could a Muslim boy be mixed up in the Catholic north? Certainly, they didn’t have the right to travel in our area, more so, Manila? I thought that they were not special. Nonetheless, I carried on, and we became friends.
This search for the difference was what makes us discriminate against each other. We created wars because of this. The comment that my white lady friend made became inconsequential especially when time had eradicated the thought of what comment she made or why the comment was lodge. Meeting a communist validated my belief that they had aspirations, too, just like us; only their aspirations may be different from ours. And the Muslim friend I had was as special as I am for our difference should not be a source that separates us but a source that we find reason to join us.
My immaturity did not prevent me from understanding one who was different from me. It only slowed me down. I could not beg you for harmony. I could not beg you to differ from the way you are now. It was finding it in our own time how to be one with the world. I could not say “don’t discriminate” for you will and until those walls you built falls, you will stop discriminating…only in your own time.
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