Discrimination

(L. discriminare, to separate, differentiate). Designates a form of treating persons, organizations and states as inferior due to factors such as race, ethnicity, gender, age, culture, ideology, etc. A premeditated depriving or curtailing of rights and privileges. One form of political d. is the restriction of a person’s or group’s right to vote or to be elected to public office. Any explicit or concealed act of differentiation or segregation of an individual or human group that entails the negation of their intentionality and freedom is d. Such d. is always accompanied by affirming a contrast with such people based on special attributes, virtues, or values that the parties exercising d. claim for themselves. Such a procedure is correlated with an objectifying “look” (a sensibility or an ideology) vis à vis human reality. N.H. condemns d. in all its manifestations and urges its public unmasking in every instance.