If Equality is Not the Goal, the Goal is Supremacy
My fellow white Americans,
An understandable and understandably common expression among parents across the political aisle goes as follows: “I want what’s best for my children.”
It sounds selfless, but only because you replaced “me” with “my children.” What you’re really saying is: “I don’t care about any children other than my own.”
It’s too bad the expression doesn’t mean “my children” in the societal sense. It’s too bad it doesn’t just go: “I want what’s best for children.”
Your children are an extension of yourself. Their children are as well, and so on and so forth. What’s best for yourself as a privileged American is to maintain your power within American society. It was best for you, it’s what’s best for your children, it’s what’s best for those who were born with your status.
It’s what would be best for myself if I could celebrate rather than find unacceptable an inequality that favors my supremacy.
What were you born? Even as a baby, minutes old, you received labels and were born something, be it loved, wanted, black, white, healthy, small, big, sick, disabled, rich, poor, male, female. Which were you? More importantly, which were you not?
If you have two healthy babies lying next to each other in a hospital nursery, do they not, at this point, contribute nothing equally to society? What can they earn as babies to be rightfully awarded the possibilities and opportunities the future holds? I’m getting very tired of the conservative ideal that affording basic human needs is unconscionable without having adequately worked for it. Where is that logic when one infant is pushed toward success and another is pushed down by economic, familial, societal, political, mental, and physical strife?
What did that baby do to earn their paved road? What did the other do to deserve the brick walls standing in their way? Don’t talk to me about handouts when you can be born with so much more than others.
We were all born with one thing in common without exception: we were all born human beings. And it is a direct indication of our lack of empathy as a society when we ignore that basic principle in favor of acknowledging what we are not. If you are not this, you do not get that. “That” could mean clean water, enough food, decent food, quality education, fair employer treatment, fair employment opportunities, a roof and bed, medicine and medical treatment, encouragement, understanding, advocators, role models, and so on.
If you value human life at any level, you should value human life at every level. You are stunted as a person if you do not agree with that.
If you point to rapists or murderers and ask if I value their lives, I will point to children abused in foster care and ask if you value theirs. When value is put on all human life, when we start at the basic level of recognizing that we are all people, the societal values imperative to peaceful coexistence become second nature; they become inherent and standard.
But when you point to the bad and neglect the most vulnerable, you are standing still. You are satisfied with the way things are. You do not value human life, you only value yourself.
And do not mix up “equality” with “uniform.” The same chance does not equal the same result. Equality does not mean everyone should be the same at any level, equality celebrates individuality at every level. As individuals, an equal opportunity to become who we hope to become should be regarded as a right, not a privilege.
The system as it stands is uniform. It requires and demands. It suffocates while inviting you to breathe freely. If you do not understand that, it is a near certainty that you were born “this,” and you were provided “that.”
An idea has been floated around that recognizing privilege is to invalidate hard work. It’s to say that anyone could have accomplished what you’ve accomplished if only they were given that chance. The backlash to that is understandably incredulous. As is unfortunate with any matter of opinion that encourages the acknowledgment of privilege, it’s misconstrued.
Please understand this: your privilege does not invalidate your success. Instead, it simply validates the idea that many are not given an equal chance. If your response is to point to those born more privileged than you were, you have your back turned away from those who were born less privileged than you are. I’m here to tap you on the shoulder, to ask you not to justify yourself, but to instead recognize the injustice toward others.
You have every right to tell me to buzz off, but we need you to turn around, to acknowledge, to support, even if it’s just by saying, “You know what, you’re right. Human beings are human beings, and all deserve the right to dignity, comfort, and nourishment, both physically and mentally, whether they’re a different gender, race, nationality, sexual orientation, religion, or socioeconomic class.” And if you keep both feet planted and looking ahead, I just want you to know that behind you, people are suffering, and now that you know that, you know you’re not doing anything about it.
Ignorance is bliss on a personal level. Ignorance is misery on a universal level.
The idea that privatizing healthcare gives people the freedom to choose their coverage is restricting the freedom of others to receive adequate healthcare. If you want the healthcare system to work for you at its highest level without working for others the same way, you only value yourself.
Privatizing the school system and pushing for private school choice through school vouchers provide the freedom to choose the quality of education for certain students while guaranteeing inequality in education for other students.
The performance-based funding of public schools does not create healthy competition, it holds the futures of children hostage and undermines the most fundamental value to our society: a well-educated, well-informed human being.
The idea that being against a woman’s right to choose does not mean you value human life. It actually means the opposite. You don’t value that woman’s life, and you don’t value the life of her child once it’s born. Your focus is on control and nothing more. You only value yourself because you only value your perspective.
If shooting a person in the street who wasn’t threatening your life based on a misunderstanding or outright profiling is okay if it’s done by a cop, you value your life as one that’s protected by law enforcement and not the lives law enforcement actively seeks to destroy.
Why should I value your position when you don’t value the position of others? Laws, rhetoric, and stances have routinely abused not only those who I love deeply, but also those who I have never met and will never meet, people right down the street and people on the other side of this small planet.
Just because it does not affect me does not mean it’s okay. That’s the antithesis of compassion.
If you feel that your freedom is being negatively affected because the freedom of others is being lifted, if you find equality unfair because you are accustomed to the privileges that you enjoy, you are poison to progress in its every facet.
I’ll leave you with these words by Maya Angelou, which I believe can empower and ignite no matter who you are, where you are, what you believe, or where you’re going:
“My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.”
