In America, civil rights laws make it illegal to discriminate based on age, disability, ethnicity, gender, marital status, national origin, race, religion or sexual orientation.
So why do we continue to allow companies to ask for this information from people?
I filled out a customer service questionnaire emailed to me by my bank the other day. Their staff did an excellent job, and I wanted them to know that.
But the last two questions on the questionnaire were:
Honestly, what difference could either of these make to putting my money in their bank? If I am Hispanic, would I be treated differently? If I’m not White, does that make my money not green?
I complained to the bank that these questions were inherently racist, and they had no need for this personal information. The response from the Customer Care Department at their headquarters was simply that they were not “prohibited” from asking, and customers were not required to fill out the questionnaire. I think that’s their way of saying, “If you are stupid enough to answer whatever questions we ask, then we can use the information in any way we want ... because it is not ‘prohibited’ by law for us to ask.”
We will not get beyond the hatred and discrimination in this country until we realize that we are all human beings and we stop placing people in groups and differentiating one group from another. We will not be one America until we realize that our differences don’t matter, and only our common humanity does.
Until our laws “prohibit” the asking of questions craftily designed to allow others to treat us differently because of our ages, our disabilities, our ethnicities, our genders, our marital statuses, our national origins, our races, our religions, our sexual orientations or any of the other many ways we are different, we should all simply refuse to respond to the questions. They don’t need to know. They have no right to know. I believe they show their intent to discriminate simply by asking the questions.
Ruth Ashby
Ocean View
