LETTER: Response to equality piece
To the editor:
It’s hard, inconvenient and unpleasant to see the privileged position a person holds when that person is oneself. The author of the Sept. 24 column, “We are all equal, so get over it,” doesn’t see the privilege of being a white male born in the US. I need to bring up some unpleasant facts that the author Taylor Underwood overlooked.
More Americans are enfranchised now than ever before, but still a large percentage of Americans are disenfranchised. Five million Americans (2.5 percent of the voting population) are not allowed to vote because they have been convicted of a crime. In 2009, blacks accounted for 39 percent of the prison population but only 13 percent of the US population. By disenfranchising people who are or were incarcerated, America is disproportionately disenfranchising black people.
This is a form of racism and it matters.
The 14th amendment was critical to desegregation in the US, not the 15th and 19th amendments. The 14th amendment was ratified in 1868, but Brown v. Board of Education didn’t establish separate was inherently unequal for another 86 years.
While we no longer have establishment level segregation, America still struggles with equal protection under the law. I cite the ongoing debate about whether gay and lesbian couples should be allowed to marry. You could argue that non-marriage civil unions would be an acceptable alternative, but we have established that separate is inherently not equal protection.
This is a form of discrimination and it matters.
More women are becoming professors than ever before but generally hold lesser positions and don’t get paid as much. Across teaching positions in academia women are paid 90 percent of what men are paid. Of the men who are in academia 19 percent are in non-tenure track positions (less desirable) and 62 percent have tenure (the most desirable). Why then are 32 percent of women in academia in non-tenure track positions and only 44 percent are in tenured? Women are getting paid less to do less desirable job.
This is a form of sexism and it matters.
I am a white male born in the US, so I have many of the same advantages that Underwood also has. I also appreciate that there are people in the country who deal with issues that do not affect me as a privileged white male. Telling people to “get over” racism, sexism, and discrimination and move on because privileged people don’t experience them is naïve.
– Jon Friedel