Equity – Environment – Economic Justice

One of my springtime rituals is to watch Ken Burn’s “Baseball” documentary in anticipation of the baseball season. The documentary is structured into innings that cover individual decades. Last night, I watched the 1940s disc, much of which is devoted to Jackie Robinson and his historic breaking of Major League Baseball’s color barrier.

The Brooklyn Dodgers’ owner Branch Rickey gave much thought to choosing the right player to integrate the game. There were many talented players in the Negro Leagues, but he needed someone who could maintain his composure when faced with the inevitable hostility they would experience. Although Jackie Robinson had a temper, he was up to the task of not responding with anger to the verbal and physical attacks. He had pitchers throw beanballs at his head and runners intentionally spike his leg when he covered first base. Not to mention piles of death threats.

Jackie won this battle using a powerful combination of character and athletic ability. He won over teammates who were hesitant by his spectacular play and leadership as they successfully won the pennant. Fortunately, he was judged on his ability and won over the hearts of America’s baseball fans. After two seasons of turning the other cheek, Branch Rickey gave him permission to be more outspoken.

His position as a trailblazer did take a physical toll and he retired after 10 seasons with the Dodgers, who later moved to Los Angeles. The iconic play of his career was in the first game of the 1955 World Series when he stole home. The Dodgers finally won the series against the Yankees that year.

He spent his post-baseball career as a civil rights leader. This is covered in the second part of Ken Burns documentary Jackie Robinson. In 2013, actor Chadwick Boseman captured his story in the biopic 42. Major League Baseball retired his number and each year on April 15th, everyone on the field wears the number 42.

One of the principles of democracy is one person, one vote. However, the United States has a structural problem that the Founders did not anticipate. The vote of a Wyomingite carries more weight than a Californian because of the small-state bias of the Senate and the Electoral College. And the residents of the District of Columbia do not have voting representation in Congress.

A hard truth about American politics is that we have a two-party, winner-take-all system with one party that wants to expand democracy and another that wants to restrict it. I know, I know, our country is a constitutional republic not a democracy. The folks who want less democracy like to remind of us of that.

I often wonder what is the bigger threat to democracy: voter apathy or voter suppression? Those who want to restrict democracy cling to the fallacy that there is rampant voter fraud. Fortunately, the review of the 2020 election by the government agencies that ran it found little evidence of fraud.

The politicians who want to restrict voting rights were unable to win elections by promoting better ideas, so they resort to choosing their voters. In addition to gerrymandering, they are trying all types of tactics: excessively strict ID and signature requirements, reduced voting hours and early voting, restrictions on absentee voting, and limited voting locations resulting in long lines.

These voter suppression tactics are targeted at poor people, black and brown people, students and the elderly. Do we ever see long lines of voters in affluent neighborhoods? Welcome to Jim Crow 2.0!

Everyone who is eligible to vote should have equal access to the polls. But the architects of voter suppression are determined to prevent democracy from happening again. Hand me my blood pressure meds!

An author that has influenced my worldview is linguist/cognitive scientist George Lakoff. Two of his books are Moral Politics and Don’t Think of an Elephant. Both books explore the differences in how liberals and conservative think and provide recommendations on how to frame political arguments.

One of the metaphors that Lakoff uses is the “strict father” and “nurturing parent” models of political thought. The strict father model is mostly associated with conservative ideology while the nurturing parent model is mostly associated with liberal ideology. Of course, most people employ a mixture of these two models depending on the situation.

In American politics, the left seems to focus on policy while the right seems to focus on marketing their ideas, which may be why they are successful at stifling the will of the majority. Words really do matter and bumper sticker slogans usually trump nuanced policy proposals.

Lakoff describes the following moral hierarchy based on the strict father worldview:

The basic idea is that authority is justified by morality (the strict father version), and that, in a well-ordered world, there should be (and traditionally has been) a moral hierarchy in which those who have traditionally dominated should dominate. The hierarchy is: God above Man, Man above Nature, The Disciplined (Strong) above the Undisciplined (Weak), The Rich above the Poor, Employers above Employees, Adults above Children, Western culture above other cultures, America above other countries. The hierarchy extends to: Men above women, Whites above Nonwhites, Christians above non-Christians, Straights above Gays.

https://georgelakoff.com/2016/07/23/understanding-trump-2/

Most people will agree with a few of these: God above Man (for people of faith) and Adults above Children. But since I believe in bending the arc of history towards justice, most of this pecking order needs to be shaken up.

You may have seen the meme that illustrates the difference between equality and equity in one of its many variations. You know the one with the three children of different heights standing on boxes to look over a fence and watch a ball game.

In the first panel labelled Equality, each child has a box. This scenario is based on equal treatment and the assumption that everyone benefits from the same supports. Some people might even call this fairness. Except it is not fair to the shortest child who can’t look over the fence to see the game.

The second panel is labelled Equity and the shortest child gets a second box and is able to watch the game. In this scenario, everyone gets the support they need and it appears that the playing field is level. However, some may assume that the second box was taken from the tallest child (who in reality doesn’t need it) and this could be a source of resentment.

In the real world, neither of these scenarios exist because the distribution problem has not been solved. Although there is the fundamental American belief that all men people are created equal, we haven’t even reached the first stage where everyone has a box, let alone made progress on creating a level playing field.

But there is a third scenario which takes things one step further but requires some out-of-the-box thinking. And that is addressing the cause of the inequity and removing the barrier. Another name for tearing down this wall is justice.

There is an aphorism frequently used by John F. Kennedy and later by Ronald Reagan that a “rising tide lifts all boats”. There is some truth to this saying, but in our efforts to broaden prosperity, we need to remember that some people’s boats are not seaworthy and some don’t have boats at all.