The quotation might seem extreme, but is, unfortunately, not unique to the time and place of its origin: the Swedish parliament of 1933. Groups of people, seen as inferior, are socially excluded, discriminated against, physically attacked, and persecuted in different societies at different times. Hostility of that kind may be mild or fierce, ranging from prejudiced attitudes with no material effects on the victims, to genocide. Such processes are anything from unpleasant to devastating for the victims. It might also be argued that they are harmful to others than the victims in the societies in which they take place. In what follows, I will present some preliminary findings from a research project which has a certain aspect of discrimination, discursive discrimination, as its object of study. My research material consists of a corpus of texts from the Swedish public domain at three points in time: 1932/-33, 1970/-71, and 1994/-95. A few texts from the beginning of the present century are also included. The corpus consists of texts from Swedish encyclopaedias, texts from the parliament, election propaganda, and a small number of newspaper articles and television programmes. I make in-depth textual analysis of how people categorised as deaf, as intellectually handicapped, as prostitutes, and as immigrants have fared in the Swedish public discourse at these different points in time. The main objectives of the study are to develop better ways of analysing discursive discrimination in general and to add to our knowledge about the discursive treatment of the mentioned groups. In this article, I will explain what I mean by ‘discursive discrimination’ and by another central analytical concept used in the study – ‘othering’ – and explain how discursive discrimination and othering might be expressed in texts and discourse. I will also present some results of the analysis of the part of the corpus which treats the discourse on people called ‘deaf and dumb’ (‘dovstumma’) in 1932-33.