Historical inequality
community. Laws surrounding same-sex marriages are continuingly being passed, with Ireland just legalizing same-sex marriage in 2020. However, if a precedent is set that every time there is a step towards better equality, people are required to correct the now recognized wrongs of the past, it would dissuade people from taking these steps. Much of the burden of correcting past inequalities would undoubtably fall on governments, so the knowledge that they would have to pay reparations for not acknowledging inequality sooner would slow down the process of accepting these wrongs by dissuading them from changing laws or policies to improve equality. It can therefore be argued that it is within the interest of society as a whole to encourage change for the better and putting responsibility on people to correct every wrong they recognize would just serve to slow this process down. A final argument against people today correcting inequalities of the past is that any resources allocated to correcting past mistakes would have to be taken from somewhere else. The two main ways which past inequalities are being attempted to be corrected today are through reparation-type payments and affirmative action policies. Reparations are costly and can take away funding from society as a whole. Equally, affirmative action policies, such as those used by universities to increase the number of certain ethnicities in their courses, take spaces away from others, who may be more qualified and fitted to the position. This can mean that attempts to correct inequalities of the past can lead to inequalities today, and have a negative effect on society as a whole. However, there are also many arguments as to why people today do have a duty to correct inequalities of the past. The first is that whilst it may be true that many people suffering from the legacy of past inequality may not exist in an alternative reality, it is also true and provable that in this reality they are still suffering from the effects of past inequality andmay have a lower standard of living because of this. For example, as a legacy of slavery in America and the extreme inequality after its abolishment, African Americans today, on average, have a lower standard of living that of white Americans. The average white household in America has a yearly income of nearly $66,000, compared to just over $44,000 for an African American household. This difference in average quality of life for the ancestors of oppressed minorities is not only provable but also measurable, and provides a benchmark for when efforts to correct historical inequality can be considered successful, allowing the correcting of historical mistakes to be done independent of individual identity. Furthermore, it can be argued that the correcting of historical inequalities can largely be done by the government rather than individuals. Extra funding can be put into community services that predominantly a ffect the oppressed group’s ancestors as a way of correcting the legacy o f historical inequalities. While this may take some funding away from other areas of society, it government ’ s job to improve the quality of life for all citizens, and it makes sense that it should be focusing on the least well-off ones anyway, as they need assistancemore thanwealthier neighbourhoods. An example of this is that predominantly African American neighbourhoods have considerably worse public services than predominantly white ones. So, to make up for past inequalities it would be fair for a government to increase funding to these neighbourhoods to improve their services until people in those neighbourhoods have the same quality of life, at least economically and socially, as those in better ones. This also removes the need for any affirmative action policies, which are designed to make up for the gap in opportunity, meaning that any correcting of past inequalities can be done in a fair way that does not negatively impact others or society as a whole.
271
Made with FlippingBook Digital Publishing Software