Rethinking Equality
With another Thanksgiving in the books, it’s not a stretch to assume that a good amount of Americans have spent this past week recovering after a holiday rife with confrontation. I touched on the massive amount of political polarization in the USA during last week’s post, and holidays like Thanksgiving have become a haven for it on a personal level. In 2017, a poll found that around half of the nation made it a point to avoid political topics during holiday gatherings, with around 40% saying that conversations on such topics became more intense due to Donald Trump’s election.
An interesting thing to note when looking into how people navigate these political discussions, however, is how they’re framed. It’s no secret that the United States has two major parties that dominate the political sphere, Democrat and Republican. That fact alone splits the majority of the country into two pieces, pieces that will clash when issues are brought up and there are opposing viewpoints on how that issue should be addressed. The interesting thing about the framing is that both sides are often given equal credence. Credibility is equally distributed. Everyone’s voice holds the same amount of weight and validity.
That’s interesting because there’s no reason for that to be the case, and it points to a much larger problem at hand.
Before I continue, let me be clear- this is not an endorsement of the Democratic party in any way, shape or form. The Amendment Project is not a politically affiliated organization. The statement that there’s no reason for credibility to be distributed equally between both parties isn’t due to personal feelings in any way. It’s due to the fact that one party passes the very, very low bar of saying things that are at least somewhat grounded in reality, and the other doesn’t at all.
The GOP has peddled lies about the 2020 election results, who was present during the January 6th Capitol Riots, the effectiveness of masks during the coronavirus pandemic, and a whole host of other things that could get their own article. Conspiracy theories have run rampant through the right, to the point that factually incorrect statements have become integral to the platform of one of America’s major parties. That alone should be disqualifying when it comes to which side is more valid. One side (as broken and morally bankrupt as it is) will acknowledge that the sky is blue. The other will die on the hill that the sky is red, and if you challenge them on it they will often respond with racism, sexism, xenophobia and/or violence. These two things are not the same.
That last sentence is the crux of the entire point. We live in a country where the middle ground is a coveted place to be, where opposing sides can come together and compromise to get things done. It’s a fuzzy, feel good sentiment so effective that brands use it to sell their products. What we have done in our pursuit to reach that middle ground, though, is equate things that have no business being at the same table together. This is something that has real life consequences; earlier this year, an administrator in Texas was caught advising teachers that if they were going to teach their students about the Holocaust, they needed to also teach material with an “opposing” perspective.
An “opposing” perspective.
To the Holocaust.
Committing so fervently to the equality of both sides when it comes to political and social conversations in this modern day lends credence to people who are Holocaust deniers, Nazis, and white supremacists. That is unacceptable. I fully understand the idea behind wanting everyone to get along and agree to disagree. That idea, however nice, is not applicable to every area of human life. Giving these groups a platform with equal footing emboldens those who belong to them. Letting emboldened people with that kind of worldview run unchecked can have truly devastating consequences. A recent example of this can be seen in a clip in which Rep. Ilhan Omar plays a voicemail she received in the wake of Islamophobic attacks from Rep. Lauren Bobert.
In that clip, a man is heard saying “We see you, sand n***** b****, what you are up to. You are all about taking over our country. Don’t worry. There is plenty that would love the opportunity to take you off the face of this f****** earth. Come get it. But you are f****** Muslim piece of s***. You are jihadist. You know what you are- you’re a f****** traitor, and you will not live any longer.”
All of this, being stoked and cheered on without any sort of remorse by a group of people who say that they’re the ones who are under attack because their bigotry is being tolerated less and less. This kind of thinking and language, being given a seat at the table because everyone’s opinion allegedly matters the same.
As I said before, I fully understand and support the idea that everyone should have an equal say and be taken seriously on the same level. That idea, however, should not be implemented when a good amount of “everyone” has beliefs that aren’t even based in reality. Some people do not need platforms. They do not need to be validated as that validation can be incredibly dangerous to everyone, marginalized groups most of all. Highly contentious topics are littered all throughout history. Everything from Brown v Board of Education to the ending of slavery itself faced heavy resistance from a certain group of people. Hindsight has shown us that we made the right decisions back then when we chose to move forward and do the right thing, showing those people that they were in the wrong no matter what they believed.
I hope hindsight looks back on our present day just as favorably.
There’s plenty more to talk about, plenty more dots to connect, plenty more context to give. We’ll continue doing so next week at 2 PM.
