Equality is for Cowards

It was one of those irritatingly righteous posts that wanted me to "share" it in order to state my agreement, lest I be damned to the scourge of social judgement and moral depravity. That's what pulled the trigger for today's rant. My crime? Believing that I might be "better" than anyone else.

I can feel the heat of your boiling blood. I can see you raise your ladder to climb that horse. I can hear the carpenter carve you a new pedestal...but stop and think, just for one moment...

Now, this might seem like a mindless, angry rant, but it is actually based on some well-considered thought. As another example, the phrase "don't judge a book by it's cover" that people like to say to make themselves seem or sound like they hold the moral high ground. I often wonder who it is they are trying to convince with the entirely illogical phrase.

Firstly, we do judge books by covers, all the time - we have to. Because few book shop managers will let us sit and read a whole book before deciding to pay for it. So we read the blurb on the back of the book. We often do that based on the name of the author on the front of the book. If I see a book with "Simon Kernick," "Mark Billingham", or "Lisa Ballantyne", et al, written on the front, I know it is highly likely I will be buying it, and enjoying it. If I see another book with "David Walliams" on the front the one thing I know is that it will never be a "Roald Dahl"!

More importantly, we also judge people very quickly. You can claim that you don't until you are blue in the face, but at that point someone would judge you by your cover and start CPR. Let's be honest: if you were a boss and someone turned up for interview in scruffy t-shirt and jeans, or Minion onesie...it won't take many seconds for you to think that they might not be the best candidate for your corporate law firm. Nor would it be a good idea to invite someone in for a nice cosy cup of tea if they are wearing a prison orange-onesie, ankle- and hand-cuffs, and blood dripping from the mouth as they grin and ask if you have Chianti.

We are not all equal. We can claim that we should all have an equal start, by all means - we should all have an equal opportunity. There is no reason why I should be any more entitled to a job just as matter of race. Similarly, the Police should never arrest someone just because of their skin colour. But they should also never have to fear the difference in race being used to force their inaction when they see an Asian man commit an offence, for example, because that mistake left scores of girls to be sexually abused by a gang of Pakistani men for years. Why? Because everyone was too "socially sensitive" to say something "politically incorrect" about the fact that a certain level of patriarchal obsession shared by a group of Pakistani men led to a child trafficking gang going unchallenged.

And that is the crux of the problem. We spend so much time worrying about what other people think about what we do, and how we might offend people's sensitivities that now in some places it is to be considered a hate crime to wolf-whistle a woman. In the same week that lunatic terrorists murdered over 80 more people in France, and a Military coup in Turkey resulted in about double the deaths of that in France...we here in the UK were worrying about wolf whistles. We live in a society that not only chooses to pander to the offended first, without question, but entertains this notion of an entitlement to be offended at anything and demand the alleged offender change their ways. Sometimes, it is the sensitivities of the "offended victim" that need to be challenged.

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So with that is why I refuse to bow down to this false notion of "equality". It is a lie. I went to school and I worked hard, loved school, got on with my teachers, used my intelligence, and was rewarded with a fantastic education that was well deserved. Others went to the same school, with the same teachers, resources, opportunities and did not achieve as I did. That was not because they were discriminated or persecuted, but because they did not work as hard, were not as committed, not as able, and...frankly, in many cases...could not be arsed.

Everyone should be given the equal opportunity to achieve their very best in life: I believe that with all sincerity. But I also believe it to be a sign of cowardice to hide behind an utterly ridiculous idealism that everyone is equal just to appease the weak sensibilities of the few who are not prepared to embrace and admit to difference. Come back and tell me everyone is equal when men get the same custody rights as women. Tell me we are all equal when disabled people don't get treated like some kind of criminal falsely claiming benefits just because an untrained assessor cannot see their mental disability - which only happens because the assessor is of a different level of ability as the fully qualified GP that signed the same person of unfit to work.

We are not equal...and the sooner we acknowledge this, the sooner we can challenge when an inequality is an injustice.

So, do you have the courage to admit we are not all equal ...and observe when our differences are deserved.

Yes: deserved.

Because if I had two injured people and one bandage...and one of them was a child, the other a child rapist...I would not bat an eyelid at their difference and would not hesitate to treat the child first.

I am sure most right minded people would do the same, but how many would also admit to making that choice because they know that insisting on absolute equality is for cowards and hypocrites.

#France #Offended #hatecrime #equality