Woke 101: Do not confuse equality with equity.
When you hear the term "equity" you must think "Marxism"
This article is a part of the Woke 101 series, which will get you up to speed on the basics that they don't teach you when you become a soldier in the culture war.
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When Martin Luther King Jr. gave his I Have A Dream speech, he talked about the possibility of a world in which his children would be judged based on the content of their character rather than the color of their skin.
That’s equality.
Equality is something we really should all be able to get behind - it is equality of opportunity. It means people are judged based on their merit, rather than on their skin color, their gender, their sexual orientation, or any other immutable characteristic.
The only people who don’t like the idea of equality are the woke left.
Why doesn’t the woke left like equality?
Because equality is grounded in individualism.
The woke left are collectivists, which means they want to judge people based on group affiliation.
Equality, as the public generally understands it, doesn’t allow them to do that. So, they invented a concept that most people had barely heard of 10 years ago: Equity.
Interestingly, they selected a word that sounded close to equality, almost as if they were deliberately trying to play the language game to confuse people.
Equity means, as Karl Marx would say:
“From each according to their ability, to each according to their need.”
That single statement literally sums up equity - it does not mean an equal allocation of resources but rather an unequal allocation decided to achieve equality of OUTCOMES.
It means putting weight on the scales to allocate resources and budgets disproportionately to groups based on a collectivist evaluation of perceived need.
Anytime you hear the term equity, you must think MARXISM. Because that’s what it is.
Today, the United States Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona tweeted the following:
“We have politicians in office that want to make “equity” a bad word. Equity helps our students grow, and it’s what we should be striving towards in classrooms across the country.“
Equity is a bad word. It doesn’t not mean lifting everyone up - it means creating a world where exceptionalism does not exist. There is no reality that exists in which every person is capable of achieving a high outcome. Therefore, in order for equity to work and achieve equality of outcomes, the highest achieving individuals must be handicapped.
Equity means everyone becomes mediocre. In fact, mediocre is the goal.
It means no one can ever achieve greatness, no matter how hard they work or how talented they are, because the system will answer that greatness with punishment designed to dampen their achievement.
If you want to understand what equity really means, the story Harrison Bergerson is an excellent frame of reference.
There is a short film based on the story Harrison Bergerson that will show you what a society based on equity looks like.
Give it a watch, and then leave a comment and let me know if this is a society you want to live in:
And if you want to watch the full (TV) movie version of Harrison Bergerson, you can find it here. I highly recommend it:
What questions do you have?
Leave a comment and let me know what you need. I will do my very best to answer.
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Equity can be great for those who consciously choose it. For example, I happily lived in rural communes for 10 years in my youth. But you CANNOT force it on people, with totalitarian rule or even with majority rule. Each participating individual must be personally invested in it, or it just results in anger and resentment.
We read Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron in high school. Even back in 1979, many of our teachers undermined high achievers like me.