Equality can be labeled as many things, on many different levels. For example, some view equality as simply having equal rights, while some view equality as being able to coexist on this earth together, peacefully. Yet, throughout time, we (as a human race) have been confronted with great challenges, a good amount of which have resulted in amazing minds and people to be wasted. Some of these challenges are wars, where we refused to find it within our selves to find peace. While some of them, are just acts of defiance and cruelty.
Every day, we see acts of inequality, in the forms of name-calling, not receiving the same amount of pay as others, not being treated with the same respect as others and so much more.
Throughout history, the human race has found ways to Chosen to hate black people, chosen to hate Jewish people. Or even chosen to hate their own neighbors, like in the genocide between the Hutus and the Tutsis in Rwanda. They choose to hate.
But, what would have occurred, if those tragedies did not?
Could one of those million Jewish people that were killed, have been the next Albert Einstein? Could we have advanced in math, arts, sciences? What if one of those people had discovered that we are not the only people in this solar system. What if ......?
My point being, we will never know how these people could have changed the world.
If only they were given the chance.
In Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson writes about the inequalities that women, children, and those of color have had to, and continue to endure today. Inequalities take many forms, but they all have consequences. When people are persecuted for their religious beliefs, race, gender or physical appearance, it results in injustice.
From his book, you can draw conclusions that equality is more than just having the same rights as others. It's about being able to freely express yourself, and being able to live without feeling less than another. Feeling that your opinion matters.
Today, there continues to be inequality between people. For example, the wall built to try to keep out immigrants from Mexico. As well as the travel bans for Muslims.
What would happen if we did not try to keep people out? What great minds would we encounter?
But, wait. Salvador Dali was an immigrant. Bob Marley was an immigrant. And if history is correct, we are too.
In your mind, you must be thinking, what stereotypical person, is writing this post?
I do not face all of the injustices that some others do.
I am a woman, but I am also white. People of color and those of other ethnicities have had to endure things that I have not. I do stand among my fellow women when I continue to fight for my basic freedoms of choice, but my ancestors did not have to live life as a slave under the watch of another, who thought they were doing the right thing.
I am listened to. I have a voice.
In Just Mercy, the character Charlie, as well as other children characters did not have enough money to be able to afford a good enough lawyer to represent them. That lawyer would have given those children their voices. But, because they were seen as young and naive, they were taken advantage of by the Criminal Justice System.
Every day I fight to be seen as an equal by men. I use my freedom of speech to protest things that I believe and make sure my opinion is heard.
I will never know what it was like for the millions of Jewish people that died in the Holocaust.
And I will never know the pain of the civil war. But, I will do my part to make sure that never happens again, by never shutting up and forcing people to listen.
Every day, we (as a human race) are faced with many challenges. One of those challenges should never be whether we have an opinion.
As the grandson of a German immigrant once said,
