How do we as a society make things more fair for a variety of minorities, based on a history of unnecessary biases?
I don’t think it’s possible to make everything equal for everyone forever and always. It’s a nice idea but I’m called to remember the book “The Lathe of Heaven” where the therapist manipulates his patient into “making the world a better place” with disastrous results. For example in trying to solve overpopulation, millions die. In another, an attempt at solving racism turns everyone grey.
The song by Tears for Fears, “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” highlights another dilemma in attempting to make things as we wish:
“All for freedom and for pleasure
Nothing ever lasts forever”
There is simply no way to obliterate prejudice. There will always be poor folks, enslaved folks, downtrodden folks, and people who get treated like crap for one reason or another. Obviously this doesn’t mean we stop caring or making effort to be kinder people, which includes examining institutional racism, homophobia, etc. However any “peace” we make won’t last in the next generation or the one after that because some other disparity will always present itself. This is the way of life and the evidence of history from the Egyptians to the Jews to women today being trafficked. So how do we balance the scales for minorities here in the US?
Foremost is we listen, even when we disagree. We also stop assuming because we want “better” for minorities that we know how to achieve it. Any modern attempt to “balance” usually results in megalomania, pandering, and short-sighted prejudices of another sort. For example when my wife or I get into conversations with self-identified members of “the resistance,” the chatter usually stops the minute we admit we don’t hate Trump. We don’t like him either, but merely pointing out a policy we like of his has literally stopped the conversation. Just today I had a white trans person literally walk away from me when I asked how shipping recycling to China was eco-friendly.
If you’re a minority and don’t hold to the new Left’s party lines, ie. Obama good/Trump bad, abortions good/guns bad, environmentalism good/conservation bad – you will be dismissed. Having an opinion as a minority means you have to sign off on cultural Marxism or you’ll be ignored or told you don’t know what you’re talking about or that you’re a pawn being used by conservatives.
Or simply treated rudely, as I have experienced on EA, by those who claim to speak for minority rights the most here.
So much for honoring minority voices.
If someone were to ask me “what do you want most from our society today?” I’d answer, to have people mind their own business, not assume I’m needing a leg up, and honor those who honor family, faith, and free thought. Because minority quotas only serve those who need to feel good about their own efforts at making the world a better place. This so called diversity and inclusion is a surface, skin deep only kind of paradigm that creates an internal self-reverence for the ally, not actual justice for soul in front of them. It’s about using how minorities may look to foster another kind of conformity…thought conformity.
And as I’ve learned since the 2016 election, there is nothing that feels more enslaving, prejudiced, and discounting, than being told I have to think a certain way because of my skin color, marital partner, sex, and ability. Having just spent several days in a small town in Idaho I can say, I felt more free than I ever do in the ultra liberal Portland. No one looked at us funny or cared how we voted. We were treated as true equals and it was achieved without a single diversity/inclusion virtue signal…and it was the most peace I’ve had in many months. That peace is how we change things for the better, at least for a little while.