Stigmatization; A Weapon for Oppression and Segregation

Nothing makes a man bury his head deep into the sand when his shoulders should be high and his head wearing a crown than stigmatization. No matter what he does the actions of a few will be used to banish his self-confidence and dent his image. Please make it make sense; why should a whole be made to suffer for the actions of a few?

Stigmatization is a staunch weapon for segregation and oppression that is experienced worldwide. Do you know that in India ultrasound is illegal? Yes, you are not allowed to check the gender of your unborn child before birth. Why was this law enacted? I will do well to tell you.

Why Ultrasound Was Banned in India

Even with all the technological advancement in India, the stigmatization of the Girl Child is very real. Just by being female, the odds are stacked against you. Due to the high rate of aborting female children when their gender is known via ultrasound, ultrasound was made illegal in India. For a country so religious that a cow is perceived as holy, it is quite shameful how they treat the female gender. Are we not supposed to see God in all of humanity?

In India, The girl child even after birth remains perceived as inferior to her male counterparts. She Is sometimes married off as a child and deprived of sound education by her family. She is harassed on the streets and gets raped on a steady. You can check the statistic yourself because numbers don’t lie. 

Frankly, for a country with one of the highest populations in the world, the stigmatization of the girl child is a disfavor to themselves. It is sad how they are clogging the wheels of their growth themselves; because the benchmark of civilization for any country will always be based on the freedom and standard of living for each individual and not just economical growth.

Stigmatization in Nigeria

Here in Nigeria, Muslims and Northerners are stigmatized as violent and uneducated. So that lovely Hausa/Fulani man that is friendly and ever-smiling is still viewed in a bad light for actions he never committed. He hears the utterances and painful remarks. He also reads the negative body language and feels attacked. This is wrong and simply breeds more hate.

An Igbo man is also stigmatized as one that is excessively thirsty for wealth and would do anything to attain it. So they are easily accused of committing crimes to earn their wealth. This like every other stigma is wrong. I could spend all day writing on the various stigmas in Nigerian society, but I believe you do not have all day to read. Nonetheless, I hope with this piece you are moved to do better. 

Conclusion

If you’re very observant of world issues, you will note that the stigmatization of people in the middle east has fueled and ignited fire into the uprise of terrorism that has affected the Middle East, U.S.A, and the entire world. If a person is innocent of terrorism but is being stigmatized as one, he or she is more prone to becoming that which he/she is already accused of. 

One of the major factors that have influenced the wastage of black lives daily in the U.S.A is stigmatization. The black man is stigmatized as a criminal and thug always armed with a weapon. So when he tries to reach for his wallet to identify himself, he is shot, because the police assume he is reaching for a gun.

If each individual takes a stance to quit stigmatizing others the world will heal. Together we can heal the world.