It is easiest to get worked up over personal injustice, it is more difficult to get worked up over injustice served to others even when the injustice is similar to or the same as a personal injustice, it is often more difficult yet to get worked up over injustice brought upon people who are different in circumstance, culture, geography or belief, and it is most difficult to get worked up over any injustice when I am fortunate, comfortable or even just okay within my personal circumstance.
I believe a common perspective of happiness is to find a way to be okay regardless of your circumstance and regardless of any clinging injustice. In other words, delusion.
It is a logical extension then to maintain that those who don't get worked up over injustice (especially obvious injustice) as felt by others are thinking and/or acting delusionally.
Delusional thinking or behavior is not always dysfunctional, (and sometimes it is necessary), but in this regard, the divisiveness created by the common injustice we have systematized in this country is keeping us from saving the world. In hindsight we will have no choice but to admit our behavior was dysfunctional.
Perhaps the 4th degree injustice described above as distanced by personal comfort, is not a separate category but a multiplier; or more correctly, a divisor. Perhaps the more you are (or the more you believe you are) fortunate-comfortable-okay-happy, the weaker, the more diluted your compassion, empathy or desire for justice. This explains the efforts of the most fortunate to maintain status quo by convincing the less fortunate that they are happy and okay within their personal circumstance.
To further dissociate and confuse within this equity dynamic, I believe we have an overall mindset that those who have more deserve more and as substantiated by our growing wealth gap, in the workplace and in other financially-driven circumstance, we have developed processes in which those who have more get more. Perhaps I have reversed the chicken and the egg; perhaps those who have more get more first, which then strengthens and justifies the mindset that those who have more deserve more. Regardless, I see this in my workplace (a large state university) and I have documented how across groups the richer get richer; (for example from 2020 to 2021 those making $100,000 or more per year received an average 5.40% increase and those making less than $20 per hour received an average 0.33% increase). Yet I have no doubt that for any given individual case, justification has been made or can be manufactured. Justification is not justice.
Analyzing what I know, my workplace, what began nearly a year ago as a search for personal justice has revealed (to me) what appears to be widespread, systemic inequity. This week I asked those with the word “Equity” in their title (i.e. equity experts) to help me to understand. I told them that I would seriously like to know if I am misinterpreting what I see and, if not, if there is an awareness and if there is work being done to correct / improve, and (again, if not), should there be? So far, (granted, it has only been a few days), I have received two responses that expressed curiosity and an official response from the Office of Institutional Equity outlining my rights, options and resources, and suggesting that I discuss my concerns with a “human resources benefits specialist” to better understand “the university’s global grading scale and job class structure.” I suspect it is this scale and structure, this exact process, that I am questioning, and I suspect it will provide justification and the University will come away secure and protected having put me back in my place. But again, Justification is not Justice, and I am not at all clear how one can see the consistent disparity in across-the-board percentage increases (ex. >$99,999.99 – 5.40%; Custodians – 1.77%) and not see inequity.
More than anything, I want to listen and understand. In this moment, I have no agenda beyond this request. Yet so far I have (maybe) piqued some curiosity and I have been steered toward resources that promise justification. We will see in the next few days if anyone will come forward to address equity and justice and compassion and empathy. If the equity experts do not have the time or inclination to discuss equity and justice and compassion and empathy, then (in this moment) I am inclined to perhaps ask this same group again; perhaps persistence is necessary. I feel like if I begin asking other groups or interested parties too soon, it will potentially muddy the waters. Ultimately I would like to see one of two outcomes: 1) an explanation convincing me I have misinterpreted data and there is no injustice, or 2) acknowledgement, awareness and the beginning of progress toward correction and improvement. This is not about me. I will say it again: there is a bigger picture here that I would very much like for others to see and understand or convince me that I am not seeing it or understanding it correctly. I will continue to pursue this, in some way, until one of these two results come about.