I am truly disappointed in today’s society. I have been in recent conversations about social equality. We especially talked about “white privilege” and how they are just given things. Another thing that stood out to me was that fact some people believe that “white people” actually should belittle themselves in order to make up for their ancestors social inequality. The fact that people actually believe in this is just outrageous, it confused me because a lot of the people who are so called “fighting for equality for all” have said this. One thing that I have noticed on this campus with the multicultural students is that they feel like they deserve something. What they deserve, I have no idea, but when I find out I’ll definitely tell you all.  My question for this week is, if we want equality for all then why are we creating these theories promoting social inequalities?

Equality: the state of being equal, especially status, rights, and opportunities.  This is an achievable thought, all we have to do would be to let go of some hatred and resentment of past injustices. James Baldwin stated in one of his works, “Being white means never having to think about it.” Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have that opinion. But you cannot say that you are for equality and then, in my opinion, bash another race. Let’s dissect this quote, when I first read this I automatically thought about have that saying that rich get everything that they want, or smart kids never have to study. The statement is completely illogical, how many of you know someone that is white or maybe you yourself are white, have you ever had to work towards something? Personally, I know that a lot of white people are very hard working. For example, my adoptive parents are white and they work their butts off to provide thing for us kids. Likewise with my biological parents, my mother who is black is probably the hardest working person I know. So, to say that one race gets everything handed to them specifically because they are “white skinned” is irrational and somewhat ignorant.

Another privilege that I don’t quite understand would be the “male privilege”. Of course, everyone seems to believe that males have it easier in life when in all actuality males work just as hard as women. Females should stop blaming the fact that they’re unsuccessful on men and more on the fact that maybe they don’t have the drive they need in order to push themselves harder.  “Privilege is not in and of itself bad; what matters is what we do with privilege. I want to live in a world where all women have access to education and all women can earn PhD’s, if they so desire,” author Bell Hooks said. I agree completely with this quote, it shows that women have the ability to do anything that they want to do if they just put their minds to put it. On the other hand, men of the world should have to acknowledge in more depth that women are being treated differently in a lot of instances.

In the terms of equality and privileges, one cannot exist if the other is still around. We as a society need to let go all of the hellbent hatred from the past. In order to proceed with the future things from the past need to be kept in the past, not to be forgotten and they aren’t meant to be forgotten they aren’t meant to dictate every decision based on equality nowadays. People need not to focus so much on the different races of the world but more of the fact that we are all one race. The human race. This means that we all have the genetic code to qualify us as human, whether you are black, white or even orange.  We all should be treated equally, so next time you think you are standing for equality makes sure you aren’t being a hypocrite.

Kysean is a speech communications major.  He can be reached at [email protected].