Part II - Inequality, Rights, and Respect (A Look At Prejudice and Ignorance in 2012 America)

This is Part II of a two-part piece addressing some forms of inequality, prejudice, and ignorance that still exist in America (and elsewhere) today. Part I is devoted to ageism, alone. Part II takes a more generalized approach to the title-subject.

First, a re-cap of some of the disgusting horrors that have resulted from someone's thinking someone else is "less", rather than equal. These quick snippets of off-the-top-of-the-head examples don't do a shred of justice to the overwhelming horrors associated with them, but there's only so much that can be included here (or in any article or book about any of these examples).

Before 1920, American women did not have the right to vote. Why? Because someone believed that women should not have the right to vote (among a lot of other things that people believed about women; and still, in a lot of instances, do).

American history, of course, also has the very ugly stain of the enslavement of African people who were dragged in chains across the ocean, to where they would be seen and treated as something less than human. Why? Because someone believed they didn't deserve to be treated as human beings worthy of equal respect, rights, and value.

As recently as the 1960's, Americans of African descent had to fight for the right to drink at the same water fountains as White people, eat at the same restaurants, and generally be treated as equals to other Americans. Why? Because as recently as that, a lot of "someone's" still didn't believe that all people should be respected, treated, and valued equally.

The horrors of World War II Europe took place when millions of people were murdered because someone believed there should/could be a "Master Race". In fact, Hitler is said to have sought research information on eugenics from the prestigious Harvard University (apparently where someone thought there was some validity in studying eugenics).

As recently as the 1960's, some perfectly sane and normal American boys were dropped off at the now infamous, Fernald School, which was, at the time, an institution for the "feeble-minded". These boys were left at the institution for years, being horribly mistreated and going without education. Why? Because someone thought it was OK to drop off children at a mental institution because their parents couldn't afford to keep them, because they misbehaved, or for any other number of reasons other than being "insane" or "feeble-minded".

Remnants of the Eugenics Movement remained into the early 1970's (if I recall correctly, and if I don't, then it was the 1960's), when developmentally disabled people were held in institutions with their only hope of being released being their agreeing to be sterilized. Why? Well, besides the fact that someone thought it was OK to rob someone of freedom in order to intimidate him/her into agreeing to be sterilized, someone also apparently overlooked the fact that developmental disabilities aren't always caused by heredity. Someone also apparently thought people with low IQ's are incapable of loving a child, or at least incapable of learning the basics of caring for one. Most sobering, it was mostly because someone thought that a developmentally delayed person "just shouldn't reproduce".

Circuses and Freak Shows once featured individuals with physical anomalies.

Let's not forget the stains of having people with deafness institutionalized in asylums because someone thought that deafness and mental illness are the same thing. There were also all those English children who had been left in orphanages because their mothers couldn't afford to feed them, who were later shipped to Australia where they would be told their parents were dead and be grossly abused in whatever school/institution they found themselves in. Why? Because someone thought it was OK to ship children off, even when their parents believed they would be cared for at the orphanage where they left them.

Then, of course, we shouldn't forget that as of this writing, there are still people who think it's OK to beat one's children, spouse, or elderly family member. Equally disgusting is the fact that there are people who think it's OK to molest one's own or other people's children.

On September 11, 2011; someone thought it was a good idea to murder a bunch of Americans for their own reasons, but also (obviously) because someone thought that some people's lives aren't worth respecting. This is only one example of not valuing the lives of others based only on their nationality; but it's an easy and fairly recent one.

Hell - there's a whole lot of mistreatment, ignorance, aggression, hate, and evil that go on because someone thinks it's OK to decide who should be respected and valued as human being and who shouldn't.

"But it's now 2012. Do you have anything to worry about? After all, you're not like all those unfortunate victims of the past."

Just in case you've living under the illusion that you don't have to worry that someone will think you don't deserve to be free, treated with respect, valued equally, or have the same rights as everyone else; it's worth pointing out that aggression, ignorance, and attempts to rob people of what is rightfully there can come in more subtle ways too. Maybe it isn't always a case of someone's thinking you don't deserve freedom, equal rights, or human treatment. Sometimes it's "only" a matter of someone's think that what you say isn't something to believe or take very seriously. It can be a situation where someone thinks that someone "like you" is just a little less worthy of respect. Maybe, too, you have absolutely nothing about you that would be reason for you to have to worry about not being valued, and treated, as an equal in society. Maybe instead it's your child(ren), your parent, your sibling or your friend who has reason for concern.

In any case, here are some things that, if they're characteristics/traits that you have, you may want to start worrying about when it comes to what someone thinks about one trait/characteristic or another:

Your nationality. A lot of people don't think people of your nationality are quite as equal to them as people of some other nationalities are (regardless of what your nationality is).

Your religion or lack of it. In a lot of people's eyes, you aren't quite as worthy of being taken seriously as some other people are.

Your sex. There's only two sexes (although anomalies occur); but regardless of which you are, there's a lot of people who will write off what you say and think because of your sex.

Your sexual orientation. There's a little more variety with this one, but whatever yours is (including heterosexual), someone thinks something about you and what you think is less than something about someone else and what that other person thinks.

Your physical limitations. Even in a world in which the likes of someone like Stephen Hawking should remind us that physical limitations don't equal mental (or any other kind of) limitations, there's a good chance that if someone out there were asked the age-old question about who'd get thrown out of a life-boat if someone had to go, you could be it.

Your mental-health condition or limitations. You may find you have even more to worry about than someone with physical limitations, because the ignorance and stigma that surround some mental-health conditions is still such that someone somewhere is likely to think you don't know what you're talking about. You might have to worry about that life-boat scenario too. Don't feel too bad, though. Perfectly healthy men may get thrown over because someone thinks women and children should be valued more. Then again, some people may throw the women and children overboard if they think the healthy man can help save the lives of anyone else deemed more worth saving. It's also probably worth mentioning here that not all women are mothers, and the fact that "women and children" seem to be one category does make one wonder it's not, instead, "adults and children". This goes back to the thing that women and/or children are often thought of (by someone) as either more, or less, valued and respected than men (who get their own category, justly or unjustly).

Your medical problems. Whether you're valued or not can depend on how much it will cost someone else to pay for your care. It can also depend on whether or not you have people who do highly value your life, and you; and who love you. Being "productive" is sometimes all that some people think matter. The person who is so seriously ill it appears his "quality of life" isn't likely to include "productivity" is valued less than the less ill person. The person who is elderly enough that he won't realistically have more than x number of years left to live is valued less because someone thinks that being that much closer to death means your life doesn't matter as much as someone who could be expected to live another forty years (but who could just as easily die long before it would otherwise have been expected).

Being an unborn baby. Whether you're valued or not can depend on whether you're wanted or not. It might also depend on whether someone else can afford to raise you.

Your homelessness. Whether you're valued and respected can depend on other people's understanding of how you became homeless.

Whether you're valued and respected can so often seem to depend on what others think about whether you should or shouldn't be valued and respected. One of the biggest problems with all this is that the minute a person and his life are valued and respected less, that's the minute that how he's treated and viewed becomes a matter of his being treated and viewed as a second-class citizen. That, alone, is mistreatment and inequality. Worse, it's often once the doors to mistreatment and inequality have been opened that the mistreatment becomes more seriously abusive and cruel.

Here are some other things that can result in your finding yourself a second-class citizen in the eyes of others (and even if you know that you're not a second-class person, that doesn't help much in a world where nobody lives, functions, or keeps self-esteem in a vacuum):

Being a child. If you're a child, forget it. There's a whole lot of people (even those who love you and generally treat you well) who can't see you as an individual worthy of respect. It may be reasonable that you can't have equal rights under the law, and it's reasonable that there are a lot of things you're not allowed to do until you're grown-up. The respect issue, however... Now, that one's a different problem, and a big problem for you if you're a child. A lot of people think you shouldn't be "seen or heard" because you're a child. So, if you're a child just keep quiet and don't question anything. Ten or sixteen years pass far more quickly than you know, and maybe you'll get some respect in the future.

Being a teen. Being a teen isn't much different from being a child, as far as being treated as human being worthy of respect goes. In a way, you may have it worse than younger kids do. In other ways, you have it better. On the one hand, you have to worry about the fact that a lot of people just don't think much of teens, their worth, their intellect, or the fact that they may actually have something to say that's worth hearing. On the other hand, you do get a little bit of holding back on the lack of respect by people who bully based only on physical size.

Being short. Here's a kind of amazing one, but short people can run into the same kind of problems and lack of respect that children and teens do - only it's worse, because they aren't children or teens. People who don't have the ability to get past equating height with age are one problem. More sobering for short people, is that there is a common, ignorant, tendency for some people to think that short people are inferior.

This is an interesting one because short men may have more problems than short women. After all, what is considered "superior" when it comes to women's height has changed over the last few decades. Once, it was considered "superior" for a woman to be "petite". Tall girls and women felt insecure because of their height. Then, fashion magazines and super models changed what was considered "ideal", and "petite" women got to take their place among the "inferior", right along with short men.

Your weight. If you're overweight (even though a third of Americans are overweight), someone just may think you're inferior and not worthy of respect, mostly because someone may also be ignorant enough to believe that all weight problems are caused by "nothing more than laziness and gluttony". If you're slender (or if you're average weight but short), you run the same risk of someone's thinking you aren't quite as grown-up as other adults (which, of course, goes back to your not deserving equal respect as equal adult, not being worthy of being taken very seriously. (This is one of the things that can cause problems for a lot of women of OK weight but who have a height that is more common among women. The most common height measurements for women around the world run from 5' to 5' 3" (which is different from "average height for each country). The point is, women have to deal not only with "the woman thing", but with the "height thing".

Your voice. If you have booming voice you're more likely to have people pay attention than if you have a "small", gentle, voice (Here's another way in which women more often have a disadvantage; but the thing is that when Feminism came a long and advised women to change their voice if they wanted to be taken seriously, that amounted to also advising women to give up their own voice and instead adopt one that isn't really theirs (hardly a way to respect and honor one's own sex).

Your face. People will often listen more, and value your thoughts more, if you have a face that's intimidating (maybe even scary). Some people think that the words expressed by someone with an un-intimidating face are the words of a child or of someone who isn't very intelligent.

Your degree of "niceness". If you're a nice person, while a lot of people will respect you for being so nice, many won't respect you as an equal or as someone who knows what he's talking about. There's a reason for the say, "Nice guys finish last." It's unfortunate that so many people think the reason nice guys so often finish last is that they're too stupid to make sure they finish first.

On the other hand, if you're not a nice person there are a lot of "someone's" who think you belong locked away in a mental hospital or prison (depending how not-nice you are). In other words, someone thinks you are an inferior individual too.

Your income. If you're low income (or no income), the world is full of people who think you don't have anything to say that's worth listening to. If you're high income, a lot of people think you can't possibly know anything about anything that doesn't involve money; or else that you can't possibly know anything at all.

If you don't have much money someone out there thinks you're ignorant, lazy, or otherwise screwed up. If you have a lot of money, someone out there thinks you got it by luck, inheritance, or crime of one type of another. (By the way, someone thinks you sold your soul to boot.)

As far as the money thing's being the potential cause of someone's thinking you don't deserve a) to keep your money, b) to exist, c) to be taken seriously as a human being, or d) to be respected as a human being, goes; it almost doesn't matter how much money you do or don't have. Someone's going to think you aren't equal (to them, to anyone else, to others who have different income levels, etc. etc.). Basically, when it comes to money, someone thinks you deserve to be hated. It's all just a matter of the income level of the person doing the hating.

Here are a few more things that could result in your discovering that someone doesn't think what you have to say, or what you think, is worth paying any attention to:

Your IQ. If it's low someone thinks you don't know what you're talking about. If it's high, someone may think you're crazy because a whole lot of people don't understand that there's actually such a person as one who has a high IQ but isn't crazy (or "at least a little off"). If your IQ is average there a lot of people who won't bother paying attention to what you say because you're "only average". Then again, people whose IQ's are lower than yours may think you don't know what you're talking about because you don't know what it's like to be like they are.

If you think that having a good education, or even an impressive one, will amount to there never being some who thinks you don't have anything to say that's worth hearing, think again. Someone thinks you're "only book-smart" and "other than that, don't know anything". Having that good education will, of course, earn you some respect and some worth in the eyes of those who value and respect education. Whether your education earns you respect from some people, however, can depend on whether or not they value and respect the school(s) that provided you with that education. If you have a good education you can, however, at least be glad you that some people will think you know what you're talking about; because people with only modest education are far less likely to earn respect, for the most part.

People with no education often have trouble being respected and valued as capable and equal adults at all.

Your eye color. There was a time when it was people with dark colored eyes who ran into problems. Recently, there are signs that people with blue eyes may need to start worrying about whether someone will think they're worthy and/or trustworthy.

Your skin color. This one pretty much goes without saying. Whatever you color, there's someone who thinks you aren't equally worthy of respect, even if a lot of progress on this particular issue has been made over the years.

Here are some more:

If you live in the inner city there's someone who doesn't think much of you. If you live in the suburbs there's someone else who doesn't think much of you. There's even distrust and lack of respect among people from working-class neighborhoods and "upscale" neighborhoods, whether those neighborhoods are in the city or suburbs.

If your home is in a rural area someone thinks you REALLY don't know what you're talking about and don't deserve to have anyone pay attention to what you say or think.

In the US, we have North/South; and long after the Civil War, we still have dislike and lack of respect sent in both directions, but for different reasons. We have East Coast/West Coast. We have "The Heartland". We have Red States/Blue States and Liberals/Conservatives.

Don't forget Blue-Collar/White-Collar (and New-Collar and No-Collar).

Then, too, for everyone who thinks the military goes into other countries without valuing the lives of the people there, there are other people who believe that government is sacrificing the valuable lives of American mothers' kids because the government values those in other countries more than its own.

White-Christmas lights versus colored Christmas lights versus no Christmas anything in the town common or condo complex - somebody thinks someone else's preferences shouldn't matter. Coke/Pepsi, dog-lover/cat-lover, outdoor-person/non-outdoor person - somebody wouldn't give you two cents for some other people's opinions. Died hair/natural hair. Make-up/no-make-up. Piercings/no piercings. Some even think such silly differences are enough to lose at least a little respect for some people.

There are people who are beautiful, ugly, or somewhere in between; and there's often contempt, resentment, and even hate from people of one group or another.

In fact, no matter what characteristics and traits make up what a person is, thinks, or does; there's a really good chance that someone would like to make that person shut up, change, go away, or be denied one thing or another. Maybe that thing is his right to have his say. Maybe it's his right to be heard. Or, someone may think he doesn't deserve something he has or wants. In fact, it could be his right to pursue his own happiness, but it could even be his right to freedom and equality, itself, that any number of "somebody's" thinks he doesn't deserve.

When I was a kid in the two decades that followed the end of World War II, my father would occasionally talk about the War. Since my mother had lost her first, young, husband in that war (they had no children, fortunately), she, too, would talk about all the things that went on during that time period. With two parents whose lives had been so affected by World War II, I asked my father what it was that started such a war, and whether we had to worry about "that kind of thing going on" here, in the United States.

My father reassured me by saying that I didn't have to worry about what went on in Europe happening here because, he said, this country has such good defense in place. He added, however, "If anyone is ever going to take over this country it will be from within, and a little at a time, because this country's defense would stop another kind of take-over." In reply to my questions about how what went on in Europe got started, my father said, "That never would have happened if people didn't stand up to stupid and evil ideas soon enough. They didn't, and that's what allowed what happened to happen." We talked about how stupid and evil ideas that individual people sometimes have are like little fires. They're usually easy enough to stomp out if we stomp them out the minute we spot one. If we don't, that's when they can turn into bigger fires that get way out of control.

My father added, "This is why, when you hear someone say something that you know isn't right, and when you see something going on that you know is wrong, you have to speak up. If people had stood up to Hitler long before he had any power, he never would have gotten any power. Instead, he said things that sounded good to them, so they listened to him." He further added, "This is why people need to be strong and to think for themselves."

My father was a short, soft-spoken, man who had a blue-collar job. He was a smart man who went to work straight from high-school. I paid attention to what he said, though, because it made sense to me; but also because, I guess, the world hadn't yet sent me enough messages about how short, soften-spoken, blue-collar, people without great educations "don't particularly know what they're talking about" or "aren't powerful". (It's funny how when we're children we can have the wisdom to see that everyone is of equal value, and not to measure people's worth by things that really aren't the measure of worth at all; but then so many of us grow up without outgrowing the self-centered ego that makes some people view themselves as worthy of measuring the worth of others, or else that causes some people to disregard others in favor of what they, themselves, want, need, and don't think someone else ought to have for one reason or another.)

Also, having spent my childhood years living, and going to school, just outside of Boston, where the concepts of freedom and equality began, I couldn't help but feel that freedom and equality weren't just concepts. (In fact, maybe I was too young to even think in terms of "concepts".) Instead, I felt that freedom and equality were (and should always be) very much a part of who we, Americans,, are. Of course, growing up included thinking beyond the borders of my own country, but children are more short-sighted than mature people are. It didn't mean I thought other people weren't equally entitled to freedom and equality - only that I didn't think about people outside the U.S. at all.

As I hope you can tell from some of the things I've said above, I'm someone who has tremendous respect for people who think differently, do things differently, or are different from me. The thing is, though, that sometimes you have to watch out with SOME things that SOME people think. Why? Because lots of times, the next thing there is to worry about is whether those people will act, try to act, or try to get others to act, on that thinking.

Part I of this two-part Hub focused only on ageism, because this seems to be one type of unfair thinking and lack of respect that seems to gaining more attention in this time when the Baby Boom generation, in all its numbers, amounts to an increasingly larger percentage of people near and over sixty. Elder Abuse is already a substantial problem for society, but some of the aggression and thinking directed at people over a certain age isn't "elder abuse". It's simply ignorance, oppression, and a belief that people over a certain age "aren't mainstream" or (in spite of their numbers these days) or equal, and don't deserve to be treated as such. Many other types of prejudice and bigotry have been addressed over the decades. Progress has been made, and much progress has yet to be made. Ageism (and the resentment and even aggression so often associated with it) is something that needs to be addressed now, because if it isn't the youth-centered culture in which we live will be targeting people decades before they're even close to being ready to "shut up and step aside"; and if everyone in their sixties and seventies is "driven off the stage" who will there be to stand up for the truly elderly and frail in a culture that understands so little about what being old or elderly really means; and that is so often so ready to expect people as reasonably young, healthy, and alive as so many in their fifties and sixties are, to ride off into the proverbial sunset years before their time?

As for you, the reader... If, by any chance, you're someone who is guilty of some of the thinking listed above, you may want to do some re-thinking - because if you're guilty of some of that thinking that amounts to seeing some other people as less worthy of respect and equality, then you apparently have a at least a few things to learn.