People never consider the pain that discrimination causes to the person being discriminated against or even worse about the pain that the person discriminating might end up with. We say people learn from their mistakes which may be true and this makes them realise their wrong doings throughout their life. Often people who discriminate becomes aware of their despicable error and learn to be less judgemental towards others. This is depicted by Walt Kowalski the protagonist of Gran Torino who is haunted throughout his life for the crime he did and the way he chose to make up for it.
Having been a military veteran who served in the Korean War, Walt is seen as an angry old man who despises Koreans. However, he gets attached to his new neighbours who are Hmong people and realises his terrible error of discriminating against them from the beginning. He’s friendship with Sue and Thao forces him to admit that they have many qualities that are favourable compared to his own family. He learns how in their culture elders must be cared for and nurtured by the young whereas his family wants to get rid of him by sending him in a retirement village. Walt gets closer to his neighbours and develops a feeling of belonging which seemed to be missing from his life with his own children. Discrimination does teach people about the right thing in time which changes them forever in a good way.
People only recognise their own faults and weaknesses when they are fallible; this allows them to eradicate favouritism in their life. Walt’s ignorance and unfair assumption such as ‘Asian people cook and eat dogs’ is one of the reason for discriminating against the Hmong people. He accused them of being ‘barbarians’, but when he was invited to the barbeque next door he was proved wrong on seeing the good food they eat. People tend to judge others from only what they see from the outside which turns out to be wrong most of the time.