![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
As a woman, I've been aware for quite some time of the inequality of women.
As a bisexual, I've been aware for quite some time of the inequality of non-straight people.
A lot of people seem to think that because we have a President who is a man of color, that racism is over. Um. Sorry. No. I knew that before I started doing all the reading and research I've done lately about racial inequality. Not to say that it's anything less than a HUGE victory for black Americans, but President Obama's ascendancy and election is not a sign of the end of US racism.
One thing I have to accept is that the human equality I would like to see will not be achieved in my lifetime, and I gravely doubt it will be achieved even in the lifetimes of any descendants of mine who might remember me. The baggage of racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, etc. is just too heavy and too pervasive to unload that quickly.
But just because I'll never see the end I'd like to see doesn't mean that it's not worth me working toward that end.
I have to keep that last sentence in mind. Just because the problems are too big for me to solve and too big to be solved in the next several hundred years most likely, does not mean that the problems are unsolvable, and it particularly does not mean that solving those problems is not a worthy cause.
It sort of makes me think of The Lord of the Rings. The protagonists were fighting what looked to be a completely hopeless war against an enemy of far superior might. But they kept fighting. And you know what? In the end, they won.
In the end, I really believe that the cause of treating other people with respect and kindness will win over all the forms of disrespect and unkindness and stronger words than those.
But ye gods, it's such a HUGE problem.
As a bisexual, I've been aware for quite some time of the inequality of non-straight people.
A lot of people seem to think that because we have a President who is a man of color, that racism is over. Um. Sorry. No. I knew that before I started doing all the reading and research I've done lately about racial inequality. Not to say that it's anything less than a HUGE victory for black Americans, but President Obama's ascendancy and election is not a sign of the end of US racism.
One thing I have to accept is that the human equality I would like to see will not be achieved in my lifetime, and I gravely doubt it will be achieved even in the lifetimes of any descendants of mine who might remember me. The baggage of racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, etc. is just too heavy and too pervasive to unload that quickly.
But just because I'll never see the end I'd like to see doesn't mean that it's not worth me working toward that end.
I have to keep that last sentence in mind. Just because the problems are too big for me to solve and too big to be solved in the next several hundred years most likely, does not mean that the problems are unsolvable, and it particularly does not mean that solving those problems is not a worthy cause.
It sort of makes me think of The Lord of the Rings. The protagonists were fighting what looked to be a completely hopeless war against an enemy of far superior might. But they kept fighting. And you know what? In the end, they won.
In the end, I really believe that the cause of treating other people with respect and kindness will win over all the forms of disrespect and unkindness and stronger words than those.
But ye gods, it's such a HUGE problem.
