Inequality

The theme that seemed to bring the readings and the video together for me this week, was inequality and the way it has changed over the years but never gone away. This ever present inequality is what makes social workers pursuit of social justice so important. Somehow people have forgotten that human beings have differences but that those differences should not make us unequal. As Therborn points out, there is a dissimilarity between inequality and differences. While we can never change the existence of human differences, we as social workers can fight to change inequality everyday (whether it’s a futile fight or not). One example of the inequalities that Therborn talks about is the inequality of life and death. There are multiple factors that contribute to this inequality but socioeconomic status is an important one. People who have little money or even those born into the wrong country have very limited options when it comes to healthcare. Things like basic checkups, emergency care, and dental are often times not available. As someone who grew up on Medicaid and currently has no health insurance, this inequality has affected my life personally and I can speak to how difficult it is to take care of yourself when you don’t have the right financial support.

Just like I cannot change how much money my family has, no one can change their race or their ethnicity and yet this difference continues to cause inequality in a myriad of ways. Johnson and Diaz both speak on privilege, specifically white privilege. Junot Diaz explained that the colored population that he refers to as “New America,” represents a large percent of the population and yet they were still being domineered by white Americans.

I believe that white privilege has never been as prominent in the twenty-first century as it is now, in Donald Trump’s America. Since Trump has taken office he has made what Therborn called exclusion the new precedent. Trump has taken away the rights of Middle Eastern people by denying them access to the United States. This is especially detrimental to Middle Eastern refugees who are seeking asylum in the United States. It seems that Trump is able to get away with this by convincing certain Americans that we have to focus on American issues and that the rest of the world can deal with their own problems. This is the exact opposite of the social justice solutions that Johnson talks about. Johnson talks about needing to see that privilege is everyone’s problem and that is supersedes race, ethnicity, and SES. He goes on to say that when those with privilege recognize that there is a problem and take responsibility for it that they can change inequality. In America today that would require Donald Trump to take responsibility for the inequality that he is causing, which I do not see happening. In light of this, I would argue that it is more important then, for those of us who value social justice to fight for it in ways that we deem possible.

http://www.indiatimes.com/news/world/why-trump-is-the-worst-thing-that-has-happened-to-us-the-world-amidst-ongoing-refugee-crisis-270460.html