Discrimination and Esteem
I just finished reading The Pearl Thief by Elizabeth Wein. This is the third book in her Code Name Verity series, but it’s a prequel and can be read as a standalone novel. The Pearl Thief takes place in 1930s Scotland and is told from the perspective of a sixteen year old noble who is rescued by and befriends a family of “travelers.” This was a new term to me but is apparently well known in Scotland and defines a group of people who, like gypsies, live a nomadic lifestyle and are distrusted for it (however, unlike gypsies, most Scottish travelers are native to the region).
In the course of their early friendship, the protagonist witnesses and struggles with the discrimination faced by her traveler friends. The local permanent residents are suspicious of the travelers, blaming them for every crime committed in the area and harassing them when they are considered to be somewhere they shouldn’t be. The consequence of these reactions are that the travelers are made to feel unwelcome (social), less than (esteem), unsafe (they are literally beaten by law enforcement, safety, physiological), and that their options are limited-to-non-existent (autonomy).
I tried to imagine Ellen’s lifetime spent enduring such an endless string of insults and violations. You’d have to have such certainty in your own self. You’d have to be so strong.
We are not given the source of the locals’ discrimination. It’s possible that it is the result of legitimate fears. Perhaps newcomers/outsiders have come in and caused trouble, possibly stealing or leaving a local feeling cheated after a transaction or perhaps a young man has come and wooed a young woman and left behind an unwed mother. In these cases, at the very least the locals’ own safety needs will suffer (depending on the crime, other needs could come under attack). Because of negativity bias, the locals will project those fears on anyone associated, however remotely, with the original transgressor.
It’s also possible that the discrimination is a result of a culture clash. We naturally judge and shame (esteem) people who do not live by our society’s rules, and that inclination serves an important role: the group functions better when each individual plays their part and abides by the rules. The shame helps incentivize individuals to play along. By choosing a nomadic lifestyle, the travelers are (to a greater or lesser extent) choosing to live outside of general Scottish society and the rules that benefit the whole.
I do think some discrimination is understandable and maybe even justified. Certainly it’s basic to human nature, and I’m learning that it’s everywhere (I was rather stupefied to learn of this type of discrimination in Scotland because I think of Scotland and Wales as being benign, idyllic country). I also think we can try to do better: do our best to respect others as individuals who are as much like us as unlike us and to acknowledge that all individuals have the same Six Needs. All of us have the same capacity for goodness and generosity when those needs are met and meanness and desperation when they go unmet. When groups get carried away with discrimination, they end up depriving their targets of many (if not all) of their Six Needs, creating a vicious cycle that blows back on the discriminators and doing no one any good.
Have you felt yourself on the wrong end of discrimination? In what ways did you find your Six Needs suffering because of it?