When a group of people get together to work on a social or political goal, part introducing yourself to the group is always some variation of the question: "How did you get involved in this work? Why is it important to you?"
It is surprising to me how often I hear the same answer.
The story goes something like this. When I was growing up, I lived in a nice neighborhood, went to a nice school, always had enough to eat, and never was in need. I had friends that were all just like me. I never doubted that I would go to college. But as I got older, I noticed more and more frequently, and with more and more disgust, that there was another part of town, full of another kind of people, and that they lived a different way. This strikes me as unfair, and so I wish to use my privilege to better the situation for others.
Admittedly, this is not generally the story I tell, although it certainly applies to me. Albuquerque is divided explicitly by a river, and those who live on the "east side" have opportunities those on the "west side" would never dream of. In Boston, I can walk along one side of Tremont Street and be walking with white people, and cross the street and be in the black neighborhood of Roxbury. These discrepancies never fail to bother me, nor to motivate me to demand change.
And so it makes perfect sense to me that these situations would inspire in others a similar desire. I am still puzzled, though, by why this seems to be the sole motivator, or at least by far the most common one.
There seem to be either two options: either everyone grows up in a place that is de facto segregated so severely by race and/or socioeconomic status, and then some of those people become involved in activism work, or there is something about such situations that inspires us to be frustrated at the status quo and want a world that is more fair. Although I think that there is merit to the first option, it is certainly more interesting to entertain the second. If there was something intrinsic to unfair situations that made us squirm, and then stand up and demand movement to fairness, then we may just have argued for the objective "badness" of segregated communities.
A premise of ours must be that segregation on the basis of heritage is, in fact, unfair. This is obvious to me, because heritage does not indicate desert, and not getting what a person deserves indicates unfairness. However, this is probably worth explicating. It is simple to see why unfairness in general may be viewed as undesirable, because I wouldn't want to be the one treated unfairly. It is probably this generalization from they to I that causes many of us to even see the unfair treatment of others as bad, too. However, it still remains to be seen why such undesirability would inspire, to such a great degree, people to act in the name of promoting fairness for others. Obviously, people do not take up arms against every situation that they find undesirable - the world would be swiftly rid of all its social problems if they did.
I'd like to claim that it is the proximity of the injustice that causes this motivation. I can learn about unfairness that occurs in other societies all day long, but if I am still convinced by its "otherness," I will not feel the urgency of the situation. Indeed, given that many now-activists have experienced this situation from the privileged side, they may feel guilt in having been afforded - unfairly - opportunities that they did not deserve. This guilt, caused by recognized contribution to a situation of unfairness, requires people to dedicate themselves to some extent to a remedy.
If perhaps we could extend this concept to motivate others to dedicate time and effort to solving less proximate problems (global problems, for instance, or problems plaguing very different cultures than our own), what change would we see achieved?
It is surprising to me how often I hear the same answer.
The story goes something like this. When I was growing up, I lived in a nice neighborhood, went to a nice school, always had enough to eat, and never was in need. I had friends that were all just like me. I never doubted that I would go to college. But as I got older, I noticed more and more frequently, and with more and more disgust, that there was another part of town, full of another kind of people, and that they lived a different way. This strikes me as unfair, and so I wish to use my privilege to better the situation for others.
Admittedly, this is not generally the story I tell, although it certainly applies to me. Albuquerque is divided explicitly by a river, and those who live on the "east side" have opportunities those on the "west side" would never dream of. In Boston, I can walk along one side of Tremont Street and be walking with white people, and cross the street and be in the black neighborhood of Roxbury. These discrepancies never fail to bother me, nor to motivate me to demand change.
And so it makes perfect sense to me that these situations would inspire in others a similar desire. I am still puzzled, though, by why this seems to be the sole motivator, or at least by far the most common one.
There seem to be either two options: either everyone grows up in a place that is de facto segregated so severely by race and/or socioeconomic status, and then some of those people become involved in activism work, or there is something about such situations that inspires us to be frustrated at the status quo and want a world that is more fair. Although I think that there is merit to the first option, it is certainly more interesting to entertain the second. If there was something intrinsic to unfair situations that made us squirm, and then stand up and demand movement to fairness, then we may just have argued for the objective "badness" of segregated communities.
A premise of ours must be that segregation on the basis of heritage is, in fact, unfair. This is obvious to me, because heritage does not indicate desert, and not getting what a person deserves indicates unfairness. However, this is probably worth explicating. It is simple to see why unfairness in general may be viewed as undesirable, because I wouldn't want to be the one treated unfairly. It is probably this generalization from they to I that causes many of us to even see the unfair treatment of others as bad, too. However, it still remains to be seen why such undesirability would inspire, to such a great degree, people to act in the name of promoting fairness for others. Obviously, people do not take up arms against every situation that they find undesirable - the world would be swiftly rid of all its social problems if they did.
I'd like to claim that it is the proximity of the injustice that causes this motivation. I can learn about unfairness that occurs in other societies all day long, but if I am still convinced by its "otherness," I will not feel the urgency of the situation. Indeed, given that many now-activists have experienced this situation from the privileged side, they may feel guilt in having been afforded - unfairly - opportunities that they did not deserve. This guilt, caused by recognized contribution to a situation of unfairness, requires people to dedicate themselves to some extent to a remedy.
If perhaps we could extend this concept to motivate others to dedicate time and effort to solving less proximate problems (global problems, for instance, or problems plaguing very different cultures than our own), what change would we see achieved?
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