Most people want to be treated as equal and equality does have a very FEEL GOOD quality about it. Is this truly what you seek?

Let's talk about equality

We often bask or burn under the scathing words fair and unfair.

People will be quick to tell you why something is unfair and generally how they think things should be fixed. In most cases this fix is a short term purely emotional reaction, and no long term ramifications of their suggestion are considered. It is often some of the following.

PLEASE NOTE: These are NOT my proposed solutions but some of the ones I see people proposing regularly.

• He is getting paid more than me for the same job. PROPOSED SOLUTION: Give everyone raises and the same pay.
• He has a fancier house than me, I live in a slum. PROPOSED SOLUTION: Tax him and give people like me our "fair" amount.
• The wealth on a new platform in beta is owned by 1%. PROPOSED SOLUTION: Get rid of capitalism. It is the fault of capitalism, embrace communism.
• Police violence is out of hand, and is even higher if you are race X. PROPOSED SOLUTION: Create a movement about how race X lives matter.
• Tuition for college is crazy. PROPOSED SOLUTION: Vote for the guy that promises free college tuition.
• Healthcare Insurance is too expensive. PROPOSED SOLUTION: Get the government to give an "opportunity" for everyone to buy healthcare.
• I really think my community should be doing X. PROPOSED SOLUTION: Get the government to make X happen.

Let's deal with one elephant at a time...

The situation a person arrives in this world in can and will provide some advantages. This is not that person's fault and they should not be judged for it. If a person is born to a very wealthy family they likely will have some opportunities and advantages you and I do not (I was born in a very poor family). Yet this is largely a matter of perception.

Please consider these things:

• Their parents may spend almost zero time interacting with them.
• They may be so entitled they do not learn a lot of the skills that you do.
• Perception of environment can lead people to see any change in circumstance to be unfair. You may say "I am broke" and truly be destitute and trying to find out how to get food for your family. A wealthy person may say "me too" and be simply due to not being able to pay for the fancy car they have been making payments on. They truly think they are broke and have no idea how low they truly could go before being "broke" like you described it. Yet the emotional impact and change in their environments STILL has a similar effect on them.
• People do not like change. It can have an impact on our fear, our saddness, etc. It is a perception thing.
• People you see as well off, can go into a negative feedback spiral just like anyone else and commit suicide.

So with that out of the way.

I would like to focus the remainder of this article on aspects of equality that have nothing to do with being born with a silver spoon in your mouth, or being born in a slum.

My personal mantra for equality...

When speaking about racism, bigotry, etc I have come up with my own personal mantra and I have used it a number of times when replying to people's articles on steemit.com.

You either want equality, or you want special treatment. You cannot have both because they are mutually exclusive.

So many of our problems with racism, religious intolerance, political correctness, sexism, homophobia, etc stem from what I call the SEE-SAW EFFECT.

A problem is perceived and the proposed solution is not actually to treat everyone equal, it is instead to look at the see-saw and it's current state and propose special treatment which is like adding a bunch of weight on the other end. The problem is that the see-saw just drops in the other direction. Rinse and repeat. A cycle of making the same mistakes over and over.

My mantra originally was something different. Earlier versions were as follows:

You cannot defeat racism by using racism.
You cannot defeat bigotry by using bigotry.

Who am I to tell you these things?

I am just a man. A human being, like you. I am a Caucasian and sorry that was nothing I could choose to be or not be. It has not provided me with any privilege as I've lived in parts of the country where that did not really matter. It has lost me opportunities where places were mandated they must hire so many minorities (aka special treatment).

I have never been racist, though I do remember my grandmother being one. I lived in a part of the country that has racism until I was five. I was in the Dallas, Ft Worth, Texas area and my grandmother saw me playing with some black children and made me stop. My hippy mother saw it before that and was totally fine with it. The whole "Peace, Love, and Flower Power" mantra of their time. I remember being sad as I liked those kids. That was the only time I personally was exposed to it. We moved to Colorado and Black kids in my town were treated like celebrities.

So I didn't have a lot of exposure to racism. I did have exposure to police stereotyping. I was on the receiving end of that a few times.

So am I qualified to talk to you about these things? Is any human? I believe it is due to EQUALITY that I should have the opportunity to say these words or any other words. It is due to EQUALITY that you should have the opportunity to agree with them or not. I will not FORCE you to agree with me because that is giving me special treatment as though my words are mandated to be followed by you.

When you hear someone say something is unfair, start listening. Is their solution to do something that is about EQUALITY or is it about SPECIAL TREATMENT and a ride on the SEE-SAW?

How about those initial bullet points?

Person getting paid more than another for the same job:
This indeed could be a special treatment situation by the employer. That is wrong. Yet the answer is not to propose even more special treatment. The solution would be to find a way to remove the special treatment as a factor. It is important to note that even though a person is doing the same job they may work harder, they may do a more skilled job, and thus the employer gave them a raise. This is a pay increase due to merit, not special treatment. The other people could likely get similar raises if they observed, learned, and applied themselves to also get a raise.

He has a fancier house than me, I live in a slum
I already indicated I would not refer to this from the silver spoon perspective. So in this case the person would have had to earn sufficient to purchase the house. This could have been by being really skilled at something (there are prodigies and geniuses of all sorts). They could have invented something. They could have created a business that employs a lot of other people and helps those people pay for their houses. They could have discovered a sunken treasure. They could have won the lottery. The main point here is that it is irrelevant how SOMEONE ELSE got their house unless they stole from other people to do so. Equality is not about what a person has. It is not about material things. It is about opportunity. Do you have the opportunity to become skilled at something? Do you have the opportunity to invent something? Do you have the opportunity to start a business to employ others? Do you have the opportunity to trek into the woods or sea and look for treasure? Do you have the opportunity to buy a lottery ticket?

The wealth of a new platform in beta is controlled by 1%
Think about that one. Some people create a platform. Who do you think is going to own the shares in what they have? Use a little common sense here. It is also in BETA which means NOT DONE, MIGHT HAVE BUGS. They also need that wealth/power to steer the initial course so they can get it out of beta. The world is full of competing ideologies and capitalism vs communism/socialism has been one that has existed for a long time. The founder of the platform will likely have their ideology be prominent in their initial design. If they are capitalists it will likely have that flavor INITIALLY. If they are communists it would likely have that flavor INITIALLY. The question is do you see changes within that platform or is it permanently locked.

Steem/Steemit is a platform like this. The wealth and power is shifting around. Some of the most powerful people are very nearly as powerful as the founders. They may even exceed them depending upon their own actions. The wealth and power are spreading out, yet this is a very new platform it takes time. I've been here a little over a month and I see the gradual changes. It just takes looking and not having a kneejerk reaction. I will say that if you like communism over capitalism you'll likely be better suited to making your own platform than trying to force people on steemit to agree with that. It'd likely be a lot easier for you to do that too.

Police violence is out of hand, especially if you are race X.
There is really one problem there. The problem of police violence being out of hand. It may be more focused on race X, but the fact it is focused on anyone at all is a problem. If you want equality it should not be to make a movement about race X. It should be about making a movement against police violence for everyone. Choosing race X is simply the SEE-SAW EFFECT again. Even if that was not the intent, it leaves the movement open for interpretation and people supporting a movement based around race X will interpret it different and take it beyond the scope of the movement. This cannot be avoided. It might be avoided if race were not part of the movement at all. :)

Tuition for college is crazy
Tuition for college is crazy because of the government and FREE money. It began with the guaranteed student loans. This means colleges are guaranteed payment whether they offer a good program or not. They don't even have to compete. They do not have to be as rigorous about who they accept. The government will pay for them all. Yet the government does not pay for it. You do from your taxes, and the federal reserve printing money like a counterfeiter and devaluing the currency. It is not FREE because it came from the government. We all pay for it in taxes, and the devaluing of the purchasing power of our currency.

Healthcare Insurance is Expensive
Have you ever asked yourself why we need a middleman between us and our medical treatment? There is a difference between Insurance and Healthcare. What kind of expense is going into keeping all the insurance company employees paid to be the middleman between you and healthcare? Now let's make it worse and allow the government to mandate things and claim to make things better. Now you are not going through one middleman, but two of them. The extreme amount of money that is wasted by passing through these two entities that are known for waste, graft, cronyism, etc is where the expensive healthcare comes from. If you want equality. Get rid of the middlemen. (You can throw Big Pharmaceutical companies into this mix too)

I really think the community should be doing X
If you want equality then go talk to community members and crowd source the things you want to do. Don't force your "thoughts" of how things should be done on EVERYONE for that is simply you getting special treatment, and is absolutely not about equality.

Thank you for reading. This is a lot of ideas I've been thinking about over the years. This is subject to evolve and change over time as anything I believe does.