"BELIEVING THAT LIFE IS FAIR MIGHT MAKE YOU A TERRIBLE PERSON" is the title of a Guardian Article by Olivia Burkeman that I haven't read yet.
The book's subject is regarding something the author calls "Just World Hypothesis"
I haven't done anything but skim the article yet because the title all by itself so describes a conversation I had with an unaware, card carrying racist a few years back.
She was trying to become less racist but having very little success precisely because of...
Parents start saying these words "life isn't fair," to children young at a fairly young age in an effort to be good parents. But many racists (and sexists) fundamentally believe in their hearts of hearts that UNFAIRNESS has been distributed unequally.
But many do not believe this. Know why? Because many people really do believe that life is fair, despite the words "life is unfair" leaving their lips so often as an empty platitude.
Some of the privileged, especially the white privileged, only believe in unequal distribution of life-unfairness when person X tells them that they are a member of a tribe starving to death on the other side of the planet. But a person that believes person X about their tribe will deny all day long that unfairness is distributed unequally right here in the United States.
UNEQUAL DISTRIBUTION OF UNFAIRNESS & RACISM
When you do not believe
that unfairness can be distributed unequally
within your own area or your own country,
you start making justifications
for why those people that are victims of x
while my people are not victims of x.
If everybody else
has it just as good or bad as you do,
then it must be that
those people
did something to bring x on themselves.'
In contrast, if another set of victims called "y"
look just *just like us*
then this is point at which well,
something real and really bad must have happened
and might ALSO happen to US, (me and my group.)
And when something bad happens to me-and-mine or somebody that looks like me-and-mine, then justice must be done, someone must be punished! Laws must be changed....if policeman are killing people at will and getting away with it!
There is so much of just-world-theory inside, outside and weaving through unconscious racism and unconscious misogyny in the United States that I wonder if we'll ever know everything that happened to black women who have been shot by police, people like Miriam Carey
UNEQUAL DISTRIBUTION OF UNFAIRNESS & SEXISM
Black women haven't gotten nearly the time, attention, and research when they've died in police custody...mostly because the black community does not make stories of police murder of black women go viral nearly as quickly as it does police murder of black men.
And it's hard to make the argument in an environment where, not only do black people think unfairness is distributed equally between black men and black women, between light-skinned blacks and dark-skinned blacks.
The black community is also a location where there is a phony but prevalent assumption that black men endure from white supremacy more and that the sexism and misogyny that black women endure is minimal-to-nonexistent --this, despite high rates of black female death due to domestic violence.
CONCLUSION: UNEQUAL DISTRIBUTION OF UNFAIRNESS
It is true that everybody has problems. But everybody doesn't have the same number of systemic social ills such as racism, sexism, colorism, etc.
And even within a demographic where individuals are enduring the same number of systemic social ills, the individuals can have differing amounts of family support, disposable income, etc. A lot of things, that are too long to list here, can make a large difference in an individual person's ability to deal with whatever has been put on their plate to deal with.
Something to keep this in mind for the rest of your life: Life is not fair because unfairness is not fairly distributed.
The book's subject is regarding something the author calls "Just World Hypothesis"
I haven't done anything but skim the article yet because the title all by itself so describes a conversation I had with an unaware, card carrying racist a few years back.
She was trying to become less racist but having very little success precisely because of...
HER BELIEF THAT LIFE IS BASICALLY FAIRThis is exactly what the worst of unconscious racists have in common, including the ones most likely to willfully not see the pattern of behavior continued by the Zimmermans, Slagers, and Pantaleos. They think life is fair even though, they and other people will claim to understand and believe the words "life is unfair."
Parents start saying these words "life isn't fair," to children young at a fairly young age in an effort to be good parents. But many racists (and sexists) fundamentally believe in their hearts of hearts that UNFAIRNESS has been distributed unequally.
Saying that
"unfairness has been distributed equally"
has the same meaning as
"life is fair"
Some of the privileged, especially the white privileged, only believe in unequal distribution of life-unfairness when person X tells them that they are a member of a tribe starving to death on the other side of the planet. But a person that believes person X about their tribe will deny all day long that unfairness is distributed unequally right here in the United States.
UNEQUAL DISTRIBUTION OF UNFAIRNESS & RACISM
When you do not believe
that unfairness can be distributed unequally
within your own area or your own country,
you start making justifications
for why those people that are victims of x
while my people are not victims of x.
If everybody else
has it just as good or bad as you do,
then it must be that
those people
did something to bring x on themselves.'
In contrast, if another set of victims called "y"
look just *just like us*
then this is point at which well,
something real and really bad must have happened
and might ALSO happen to US, (me and my group.)
And when something bad happens to me-and-mine or somebody that looks like me-and-mine, then justice must be done, someone must be punished! Laws must be changed....if policeman are killing people at will and getting away with it!
There is so much of just-world-theory inside, outside and weaving through unconscious racism and unconscious misogyny in the United States that I wonder if we'll ever know everything that happened to black women who have been shot by police, people like Miriam Carey
UNEQUAL DISTRIBUTION OF UNFAIRNESS & SEXISM
And it's hard to make the argument in an environment where, not only do black people think unfairness is distributed equally between black men and black women, between light-skinned blacks and dark-skinned blacks.
The black community is also a location where there is a phony but prevalent assumption that black men endure from white supremacy more and that the sexism and misogyny that black women endure is minimal-to-nonexistent --this, despite high rates of black female death due to domestic violence.
CONCLUSION: UNEQUAL DISTRIBUTION OF UNFAIRNESS
And even within a demographic where individuals are enduring the same number of systemic social ills, the individuals can have differing amounts of family support, disposable income, etc. A lot of things, that are too long to list here, can make a large difference in an individual person's ability to deal with whatever has been put on their plate to deal with.
Something to keep this in mind for the rest of your life: Life is not fair because unfairness is not fairly distributed.
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