2005.02.11
Equality for All
I believe in equality for all Americans. It is an ideal that isn’t always found in reality and sometimes the best we can manage is equality in the eyes of the law on paper. Our history of racism, xenophobia, and “fear of the other” is subtle yet strong. I really don’t believe that most Americans think that a particular group should be subjugated or treated differently than anyone else. Reality is a very different thing.
Take a white housewife from suburban Kentucky traveling alone in the south side of Chicago and she is going to eye every black man she sees with, at a minimum, suspicion. Take a black man and plunk him down in the middle of San Francisco (notorious for its liberality) and he’ll probably wonder, “Where are all the black people?” A girl raised in a very wealthy family isn’t likely to think of Hispanics as equals when she only sees them cleaning the house, doing the yard work and speaking Spanish. You’re not too likely to see a straight couple from Alabama spending too much time in the nightclubs around Christopher Street in Manhattan.
I know that life isn’t fair. I know that in reality you cannot force these people to change their perceptions of other people. Everyone has prejudices, including myself, and anyone who says they don’t are liars and self-deceivers.
Yet I still believe in the ideal of equality. I believe that so long as we are striving towards universal equality then we can at least claim to be good people living in a good civilization. Any laws that discriminate against another go against this ideal and towards inequality and denial of freedom. I will always work towards the idea of equality just as many work towards the ideal of perfection. Most know that the ideal is never attainable in the real world, but the journey to get there brings everyone a step closer.
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