I am a member of the least marginalize group of people on the planet—white, male, cisgender, heterosexual—so my ability to understand the experience of marginalized people is entirely limited to vicarious exposure and imagination. But even that is enough to know that something drastic has to be done about inequity and discrimination. It is obvious that sweeping change is needed. More than obvious.
And while we’re at it, while we are searching for ways to rectify glaring inequities and socioeconomic inequality, it would be a good idea to take a really close look at the actual source of these things. What is it that is causing inequality? How does the potential for inequity even come about?
It has been clear for quite some time that inequity and discrimination are not (just) the result of the actions of racists and bigots and homophobes and transphobes and other assholes, but that they are systemic, literally hardwired into the gears of the socioeconomic machine. Systemic change is what is needed. Rewiring the system to make things more equitable, then, seems the obvious path toward a solution.
Recent attempts along these lines, however, have produced results that are trivial at best. And they are being eclipsed by reactionary anti-trans laws, book bans, and legal restrictions in public schools on any discussion of the history of racism or the mere mention of sexual orientation. It is almost as if the system is trying to defend—and even expand—its support for discrimination and its capacity to produce inequity.
When we talk about “the system,” what we are really talking about is a massive collection of mechanisms for distributing and allocating power and control within society. Power and control require something (somebodies) to have power and control over. This means that the system, by its very nature, requires inequity and inequality. Its very existence is grounded in the unequal distribution of access to resources. That is the fuel that powers the machine. That is both the foundation and the fabric of modern consumer society. If you remove that part of it, if everyone suddenly had equal and unrestricted access to life’s necessities, the system—modern global civilization—would vanish in a puff of fairy dust.
So, while we are working to change the system to lessen the pain and expand the opportunities for members of marginalized groups, we should understand that it is the presence of the system itself that creates the potential for the unequal treatment of people. While we work on “leveling the playing field,” or whatever metaphor you want to use, let’s also work to weaken our dependence on the mechanisms of power and control that create the possibility for inequity to begin with. Because as long as the system—regardless of its particular “wiring”—continues to exist, inequity will continue to exist. It has to.
