Motivation and discrimination

One of the biggest problems to deal with in the anti-discrimination field is the myth that people are only discriminating if they are actively hating or deliberately planning harm.

That is utter rubbish.

To illustrate that, consider the difference between murder and manslaughter.

Murder requires active intent - and the fact that courts are able to assess this makes a mockery of ALL claims that courts cannot consider motive. Motive - intent - is inherent to the charge of murder.

Manslaughter, on the other hand, is when someone did something that was stupid, and they may have intended harm, but they did not intend - or it was not possible to prove beyond reasonable doubt that they intended - to actually kill the person.

Discrimination covers both cases.

Genocide - another matter that requires the establishment of intent - and similar crimes are clearly in the category of being equivalent to murder. Having seen the vitriol in the faces of racists, homophobes and transphobes and the like, many cases of that are also in the same category - intent to cause serious harm or death. Keep in mind that this week someone has been charged over the death by shooting of a transwoman in the USA, which is the land of lynchings - maybe not all in the past . . .

Most discrimination, however, is in the second category - being more akin to manslaughter - or, perhaps, breaches of safety regulations. A worker who dies from poor safety in the workplace is most probably not dead because the owner actively hated that individual, but because they loved profit and didn't think of what the consequences could be.

When a group of whites excludes people of colour because the whites feel more comfortable that way, they may be focusing on personal comfort more than the consequences - which, to the person being excluded, are devastated.

When a transphobe casually misgenders a trans person, they may not be thinking at all (another serious problem in and of itself) but the devastating harm is done.

Intent to harm is not a prerequisite for guilt of discrimination.