Inequality matters
For me, George Floyd’s murder has not only reinvigorated the BlackRightsMatter movement, but has also opened a can of worms of inequality across the board; inequalities of race, gender, class, caste, ethnicity, economic and religious discrimination. This discrimination has existed for 1000s of years; I’ll highlight just 3 short stories from the last decade.
A teenage migrant arrived for her first day in high school. She was nervous and excited in the pit of her stomach as she heading out from the administrative block into a maze of buildings and room numbers. She was especially a bit daunted of classmates of races that she had never interacted with before. She knocked on the door of her first class — computer science- and a European, middle aged teacher emerged. When the teacher heard the migrant kid’s name she laughed and even drew out a swear word from it- “you should change your name. All the other kids at school will laugh at you”.
A tech entrepreneur was sitting in the lobby of a heritage hotel in a renowned tech cluster. She was meeting a well known industry leader and was eagerly looking forward to their advice on the state of the industry and challenges it faced. When the distinguished gentleman arrived, he shifted the topic of the discussion to European colonization and how it had made the world a better place. In the beginning, the entrepreneur found this very odd and kept trying to maneuver the conversation back to the intended discussion. The advisor’s parting comment was, “England should have never left India, look at how the country has gone to the dogs”.
A young professional working in the midtown Manhattan was crunching away on analysis that needed to be sent out in the next few hours. She enjoyed working as part of a collaborative, diverse team, including exceptionally talented women from across continents of Africa and Asia, and found it to be one of the best features of the company she worked for. Later that day, she heard feedback from a new white American team member that the project leader had indicated to him in their interview, “ We need more normal people in the team, there are too many exotic people and the client may not relate to them easily”.
These stories as you may have guessed are my own. This is a global problem. These incidents take place across countries, across professions and at different stages of one’s life. When we first settled in New Zealand, my father made an observation that he had been facing racism at work, holding him back from reaching his full potential for his team and company. In my perpetual teenage optimism, accepting no career excuses, I refused to believe him. Now, I have both personally experienced, and observed friends and colleagues facing, similar situations of discrimination.
We can write about it, go rioting, post hashtags and blank pictures. However this trend will soon loose its sizzle. Inequality has existed for thousands of years and comes in different shapes and forms. Whilst we strive for social justice today, it is important for the fight to continue everyday through our own medium, and through that success allow the impact to grow systematically.
