Letter Five

Dear Reader,

Your strides towards equality have, in some ways, been very successful. However, despite the limited success you have witnessed you have convinced yourselves that you have done all that needs to be done in regards to equality. You assure yourselves that racism, sexism, classism, and religious discrimination no longer exist. You are unable to see that these things are still raging in your country because you are not a victim of them. Some of you are subject to these inequalities yet because you are not victimized by them you fail to notice them.

 What I mean by this is that many of these issues coincide with one another which causes a higher level of vulnerability to the effects of discrimination. For example an impoverished woman is much more likely to notice sexism than a woman in the upper middle class. An upper class woman might not notice things such as the gender pay gap and pink tax, whereas a woman in a lower class would find great significance in this difference. This is not the only instance in which a person is subject to inequality without realizing it.

Many of you are raised to view the inequalities in your lives as normal, and thus think nothing of them. You are raised with the understanding that saying a prayer in school could result in being bullied, thus you do not see the injustice in the bully’s actions. Young religious women are raised with the understanding that people will see their long skirts and shaylas as prudish and silly. This is a large factor in solving inequality, you must teach your young ones that inequality should never be normalized. 

The next step to creating a solution for inequality is to teach yourselves and those around you about differences and to celebrate them for the gift they are. Americans, you spend an approximated $154 billion dollars annually on international travel. You want to go and experience other cultures and religions, yet you ridicule your own neighbors for displaying aspects of their culture and religion. You yearn to peer into other worlds, yet you keep your windows closed to the world waiting outside them. 

You watch films which display other cultures, you go to restaurants that serve international foods, you seek out culture, you are intrigued by the beauty and differences within it. Without culture your world is empty, it is grey and dull. Still you smother the cultural and religious differences which exist in your lives. Individuality is what makes your world so beautiful, celebrate it. I encourage you to ask questions, people are eager to share their cultures with others. I encourage you to share your own stories, people cannot understand something that has never been explained to them. 

As for gender differences, I encourage you to understand the benefits of gender equality. By offering women equal pay you will see a surge in job creation. Your households will be much happier, your relationships with your children will improve drastically. You will experience lower levels of job turnover and higher levels of job satisfaction. Businesses will find it easier to recruit employees. Gender equality does not only benefit women, it benefits the economy, businesses, men, and children as well.

As you work toward equality you must remember that equality is a level playing field. It is very easy to be so determined to create equality that you tip the scale and reverse the inequality. I encourage you to be diligent, work towards equality reexamining the world as frequently as you do. 

This is the most important thing which I hope you understand from this letter, inequality will always exist when you are not mindful of it. If ever you are so fortunate as to create a truly equal society, you must still reexamine your world frequently. Inequality is often quiet, it will weave its way back into your society if you are not mindful of it. Are you mindful of it? 

Sincerely,

INJUSTICE