What’s fair?
“I cut, you choose” doesn’t really cut it.
Snack time and one piece of cake at her house, my friend Lynn called the rules. An only child, she likely didn’t have to share as much as was required with two siblings at my house, but somehow she had figured out that I’d default to the “polite thing” and select the smaller one.
Expecting Lynn to abide by the same unspoken norm when it was my turn to cut, her quick choice of the bigger piece took my ten-year-old self by surprise.
Sometimes we learn what’s fair by experiencing, or witnessing, what’s not.
Conditioning
People have been wrestling with the meaning of equality for centuries in this country, and we still are.
When it comes to racial constructs and systems, we learn from an early age how it works, even if we are not fully cognizant of that understanding. We figure out who is valued more and who is valued less, that it’s beneficial to be white, in the racial group that constructed the construct of race and designated itself to do both the cutting and the choosing.
Unlike a child’s innocent desire for a bit more cake, extreme self-interest is behind the systems set up to forge and perpetuate racial inequity in this country. What results is extreme unfairness, discrimination and harm done.
White supremacy is a game, chosen and designed so that the whites “win.” Over and over, and at the expense of the lives and well-being and livelihood of non-white brothers and sisters. Exploitations and knees on necks and red-lining and criminalizing… oppression. Sure, a few exceptions succeed, and many will point to them as evidence as a fair game. But it is not fair. The scorecard, historic and current, is smeared with inequalities, and in my view that means everyone has lost.
Compassion
Now, you may be wondering why I’m writing about race. In the last several months I’ve become even more intent to practice, deepen and expand my own self-education about racism and anti-racism. (If you’re interested in reflecting with me on the subject, I welcome the opportunity to talk with you. Just reach out and contact me!)
At this evolutionary moment in human history, those of us with privilege are called to examine more deeply what hasn’t been fair, how I’ve benefited, who is being harmed and make it right. Close reflection, and reckoning, reconciliation are key ingredients in what good could be evolving.
Consciousness
More eyes and hearts are opening, now clearer than ever before, more white folks are realizing the lessons, both subtle and insidious, acquired since birth, about the false hierarchy of human value that places whites above all others.
As in the transformative work of creative spirit, awareness lifts and humans can awaken to the truth of what is and what is possible. The veil thins. Sometimes subtly, dramatically, mysteriously, magically, quickly or gradually, the expansion of consciousness is most often in service of evolution. Often the veil lifts when we add focussed attention dedicated work. It’s not always easy or comfortable to grow, expand and evolve, but isn’t that what we’re here for?
Which piece of cake is bigger? White people have been the ones to cut, and white people have been the ones to choose. By violent, cruel and inhumane treatment of people of color as less than, less than human. Seeing the truth of historic and present inequities continue to come up into awareness, to consciousness. That is the good news.
When our awareness is raised, we can also rise to the level of conscious choice. The place to truly choose what is fair and equitable. What needs to be done to repair the harm caused? What will we do to right the wrongs and create fairness?
Creativity
What is it to imagine, envision and create new systems that better honor our highest values such as, in this case, equity and fairness?
I wish it were as simple as dividing a lovely piece of cake.
Now I’m asking, “What does fair mean to you? To me? To each of us?
What would more fair and equitable community of humankind look like?”
This offers us a chance to see and say, to imagine and dream and wrestle with the question of what fair means.
What will take us beyond zero-sum, without winners and losers, but everyone with a good piece?
We have a lot of questioning to do. And learning and reflecting and reimagining what’s possible for creating communities for all that are truly equitable.
It’s only fair.
