Equality: Equal Access to Equity

With the level of technological advancement in a free-market capitalist world of our time, the powers that be have become more creative in using systems and platforms to keep the disenfranchised repressed. So, it is always refreshing to see more voices joining in the equality and diversity activism. We live in an era where people believe that openness about their otherness and the liberty to function as such, is necessary for their holistic health and wellbeing, hence their involvement in causes that promote equality and diversity in their communities to secure such freedoms and liberties. However, the ambivalence surrounding individualism has skewed our hermeneutics on equality. Even the best of the best in academia like Kurt Vonnegut have this faulty understanding of equality.

Equality is not sameness, it is the equal access to equity; thus, necessitating diversity. This skewed understanding of equality as sameness makes us conceive anyone who does not share in sameness with us as an agent of chaos, a threat to our health and wellbeing. Therefore, the ethos behind our equality advocacy becomes that of an “us against them” mentality and transmits our activism into an operation of repressive otherization. And this is what corrupts our good cause. Even the activists that profess their indulgence in all these meditations and practices, and claim to be manifesting peacefulness, mindfulness, thankfulness, and empathy are corrupted by this “us against them” mentality.

Their rhetoric is therefore hypocritically and cunningly nuanced with toxicity and incitement of “us the pious ones against them the infidels” mentality. And even more to that is the passive aggression, the fake empathy, the judgemental innuendos, and the self-righteousness. Even worse, is the grifters whom with no modicum of scruple, use equality and diversity as an agenda to fill their pockets. People who are you fooling? Stop the pandering! You can’t advocate for equality and diversity when you are disingenuously apathetic towards the wellbeing of the other.

The mistake for most of these voices, is that in their activism they lack understanding of what equality is. Again, let me iterate. Equality is not sameness. Equality is equity; a wholeness within which all members can be diverse but have equal freedom to access the benefits and all provisions of that unit whole, and in return be accountable and responsibility in offering inputs that manifest overall health and wellbeing of that unit whole. It is a mistake to look it through a lens of homogeneity, because equality rather dwells in heterogeneity.

Diversity in humanity is necessary for the flourishment of community because the provisions and inputs necessary to keep society healthy, is heterogenous. Your input, my input, her input, his input, its input, their input all combines into our input to make this unit whole (this world we live in), a healthy and flourishing place for all humanity. And because of this diversity, we all, irrespective of our otherness, deserve equal freedoms, benefits, recognition, and acceptance.

And this is a testament that equality and diversity are natural and primordial. They are necessary in the holistic arrangement of the universe. The universe is a unit whole structured holistically with immeasurable numbers of diverse organisms. In other words, all the organisms are needed to potently function towards the wellbeing and flourishment of the universe as their equal contribution. As humans, we have an innate drive, which is a vision of wholeness that inspires us to keep this holistic unit healthy and flourished. So, our advocacy should portray wholeness. Our activism must be founded on the spirit of communion, the agency of interconnectedness that functions in empathy and peacefulness.

How can we inspire others to appreciate equality and diversity if we lack empathy and are apathetic towards their concerns and beliefs. How can you have any understanding for another person if you lack empathy. Why will they grant us audience to reason with us in any way with all these hostilities towards them. Let’s do better, let’s grow in empathy, in peacefulness, and in all the depictions of interconnectedness. Please stay blessed!