We all think we know, from about first grade on, what fairness is and what it means. But sometimes maybe we need a little reminder...
We like to think that as we grow-up this sense of right and wrong grows with us, and that maybe by the time we’re old we’ll understand fairness and unfairness, if not perfectly, at least well enough to make the right decisions and do the right things.
And yet, think about Rosa Parks finally deciding not to give up her seat on that segregated bus.
Not to move to the back where, based solely on the color of her skin she was expected to go.
Imagine the white people on that bus watching this drama unfold and either saying nothing or joining in condemning this simple brave act (an act which started a chain of changes so important to the world).
Imagine those other passengers: their hate-filled sneers, lips curled up in rage and horror — their words, curses, saliva packed in the corners of their mouths, muttering, and spittle flying out uncontrollably —
Their eyes narrowed to a savage, piercing, vicious glare.
Did any of those passengers in the white people’s seats, think to themselves, “Wow, what a courageous act. I can see how this is the way change begins.”
Any of them?
If so, I never heard about that.
Did any of them speak up?
If not, how can we believe humans are capable of understanding fairness at all?
Perhaps those were adults on that bus; perhaps some old ones at that, and by riding the bus we can guess that maybe they were not all that much more affluent than Rosa Parks.
And maybe they were of average or even higher than average intelligence.
But somehow that didn’t help them to recognize this most obvious example of fairness/unfairness, unfolding right before their eyes.
I wrote this first, back in 2014, and for six years America’s first black President had lived with dog-whistle racism, trying to destroy every good thing he wanted to do.
“It’s not his race not the color of his skin we loathe; it’s his ‘Otherness’ and his evil ideas we oppose.”
But the simple truth is that we are all still passengers on this bus now, as we settle into a long, relieved sigh over the 2020 election results.
It is unfair not to let a President implement the policies and plans he was elected, and re-elected to do.
I am an old white man, sitting in a great seat on the bus, but it’s time to stand-up and tell everyone within the sound of my voice,
“We must stop this unfairness when we see it.”
Am I preaching to my fellow travelers?
You’re goddamned right I am!
Fairness demands it whether we let ourselves see this and like it or not.
Photo by Unseen Histories & Lubo Minar.