Monday, February 18, 2019

What Do Social Justice And Injustice Look Like

By Sarah Ward


The world seems to be more sharply divided than ever between the haves and the have nots. Wealth, opportunity, and privilege in many parts of the world, including the United States, seems to be the prerogative of a select few. Social justice on the other hand is the concept of everyone having the same access to the possibilities of wealth, opportunities, and privileges.

The idea that an open society should have the same rules for everybody is a product of the mid-eighteen hundreds. Its first appearance came during civil revolutions that rocked Europe and with the rise of the Industrial Revolution. The focus during this period was on fair distribution of wealth, property, and capital.

It took another hundred years for the concept to expand. This time it included gender, environment, ethnicity, and race. It was also expanded from primarily a governmental issue, creating an atmosphere conducive to an equal society, into the responsibility private citizens have for human victims no matter where in the world they are.

The experts break down the issues that prevent a just society into two parts. The first involves how society treats some individuals based entirely on their own personal bias, misinformation, fear, and prejudice. This is the case when people are treated unequally just because they are of a different race, religion, age, social status, ethnicity, or have mental or physical disabilities.

Governments that enact unjust laws and regulations are the other part. When governments, deliberately or not, create certain conditions that have the effect of denying or limiting part of the population from accessing the same opportunities given to other parts of the population they are promoting injustice. Labor laws limiting workers' rights is one example. Another is gerrymandering and requiring voters to product certain identifying documentation in order to vote.

Environmental laws, or the lack thereof, that allow industries to dispose of waste in the lakes and rivers that a community relies on for drinking water is another example of governmental injustice. There are still schools in the United States that do not comply with school segregation laws. There are certain areas of America where people of a certain race or ethnic background are more likely to be pulled over by law enforcement.

Unjust treatment by societies is divided into two categories, the direct and the indirect. Direct inequality comes about when individuals within a society deny rights and opportunities to certain individuals and not to others. An example might be the owner of a public restaurant who refuses to sit individuals in the dining area because of what that owner perceives is their sexual orientation. Direct inequality is also segregating schools and public facilities based on race.

Indirect inequality happens when governmental regulations are put in place that don't have specific language inhibiting the rights of a segment of the population, but have the effect of doing just that. Laws limiting mail in voting and voter identification are an example of this. Buying clothing that was manufactured in sweatshops supports the unsafe conditions of the laborers who work in them.




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