Is “Height discrimination” a real thing?

Is it rude to comment on the heights of tall people? For example, at work today, a taller customer came in: A about 5 foot 3 worker here said something along lines to a 6 foot 6 customer “Hey Big man, hows the view up there? You’ve got a good look! You see it all! You’ve got A real Birds Eye up in the sky?”

basically, if you’re a “taller height person; Do you ever find those comments “funny” or “just playing around”? Or do “tall joke insults” maybe “annoy” you? Or don’t find them amusing or funny?

 

I just wish that people would see others for who they are and not what they are. There is discrimination in all sections of society and it really pisses me off.

 

Any comments that include race, gender or any physical attributes are only wrong if they are used in a negative context or intended to be hurtful.
For example, their is nothing wrong with using comments such as "You need to speak to Joe, the black guy over there". In this case you are describing Joe in a positive light.
It is the nanny state rules, that confuse people and in many cases they are completely wrong. Taken to the extreme, they would involve completely banning comedy.

Here in the UK a few years ago, a politician was forced to resign for saying that a situation was not black and white. In reality, that expression goes back to print and film, to distinguish it from the earlier sepia. (brown and cream pigments).

 

I think there is no way for you to know someone else's lived experience. You don't know how that particular tall person views comments about their height. I don't think it is necessary to point out differences in people like that. I'm sure the guy already knows he's tall and that everyone else can tell that he is tall as well. There's really no reason to be pointing it out, so why do it? Of course, allowing for the possible exception of using the fact that he is tall as a descriptor as wilsjane pointed out. The comments you are referring to might seem good natured on the surface but could be taken as tedious at best and hurtful at worst. Just because shorter and average height people might see it as some sort of compliment, it's really not. Compliments, and insults for that matter, are better when they are about things the person has control over not things they were born with (or developed naturally in this case, since he wasn't born 6' 6"). Not that I am advocating insulting people, just sayin'.

 

Discrimination? In the immortal words of Inigo Montoya "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

There is a difference between discrimination and common rudeness or bad manners. Someone makes a rude comment and you think it is "Discrimination?" Please back the **** up. I know our our education system is failing our youngsters but honestly, WTF? I think if everyone stopped using words they don't understand the definition of the world would be a better place. A few words that come to mind: racism, discrimination, slavery, genocide, Nazism, fascism...you get the picture.

Just to calibrate the machine:

-Segregation was/is racism

-Jim Crow was discrimination based on racism

-Slavery was/is bondage (race agnostic). Modern or neo-slavery counts around 40 million people in bondage TODAY! North Korea, China, Eritrea, Uzbekistan, the UAE. There are more slaves today than there were in 1865.

-Genocide is the Holocaust, the Holodomor, Rwanda, etc.

-Nazism was a socialist/statist, totalitarian regime that killed millions of innocent people, including 6 million plus Jews. But they didn't just kill Jews, they killed Catholics, Gypsies, homosexuals, those with developmental problems and other disabilities...and 27 million Russians.

-Fascism is a totalitarian socialist/statist methodology (that looks a lot like communism) etc.

So, please educate yourself with what words mean before using them.

Oh, and if someone is rude to you, either suck it up or drop the gloves but don't cry about it.

 

As is often the case with language sometimes what you think it means is correct but not the only or entire definition or interpretation. You are narrowing the definition of discrimination to a very focused point and I understand that your doing it because you're frustrated that the word might seem to be getting diluted and losing it's effectiveness but that is not the point of this thread.

Furthermore, I think you misunderstood what the OP actually said. He was not offended by something someone said to him, he was curious to know if what he had observed would have been offensive to the customer in question. So telling him to "suck it up or drop the gloves" isn't relevant.

The definition of discrimination is - to treat a person or particular group of people differently, usually in a worse way from the way in which you treat other people, because of their race, gender, sexuality, etc.

The original question actually adheres to the literal definition of the word. Yes, it is usually used to describe being treated in a negative way but essentially it is just treating a person or group of people differently because of a particular attribute they have.

While your rant may be justified in the grand scheme of things it doesn't apply to this where someone was asking a genuine question about how others might feel. Maybe if you feel that strongly about it you should write your own thread on the topic.