worldof20something

Sure, we’ve come along way in the past century.  From abolishing slavery to giving women the right to vote, Americans have come a long way in promoting equality.

But we’ve still got a long way to go.  And one of the areas that has a lot of room for improvement involves something that you can consciously try to control: your perception.

This issue has been brought to my attention by the ongoing media coverage of the 2008 presidential election.  If I had a nickel for every time they brought up “first black president” or “first female on the republican ticket,” …well, let’s just say I could retire early.

And politics isn’t the only arena in which you’ll hear things like this.  Think about it.  There’s the first person to play major league baseball… then there’s the first black person to play major leage baseball.  There’s the first person to climb a mountain… then there’s the first female person to climb a mountain.

For some reason we find it necessary to label people’s accomplishments as substantailly “different” because, this time, they’re being done by a different “kind” of person.

So what can you, as an individual, do to try to improve equality in the good ol’ U.S. of A?  You can be aware.  Be aware and help others be aware.  When you hear statements about the first black or first woman or first whatever, consciously challenge those statements to yourself and to others.  Also try to withstand from using these sort of statements yourself.  Yes, it is perfectly okay to acknowledge race or gender as one of the many traits of a person that makes them unique - but to view one another with equality, these irrelevant factors should not become their sole distinguisher.

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