Belief’s Role in Inequality
I’m inspired by Rhi to talk about my reading this summer. A book I was surprised to find myself reading was Improving School Board Effectiveness: A Balanced Governance Approach, edited by Thomas L Alsbury and Phil Gore. Not my typical beach read, ha! Public school education started to pique my interest during second term due to a class project, but since last April, the majority of my reading and free time has centered on this topic after deciding to run for School Board Director (elected office) of our local district.
One of the chapters in the book outlines key actions using the categories of know, do and believe. The “believe” category struck me as an interesting lynchpin stuck in the cogs of change. We can accumulate knowledge and evidence for the existence of inequity and exclusion, as well as solutions for a more equitable society, but if there is no belief that it could or should be different, then there will be no change. I use both could and should to consider the connection between belief and desire.
It seems a fair claim that many people believe certain groups have less value, less capability, less right to opportunity and outcomes than others, and that the belief is solidified by the evidence they see in societal outcomes. Beliefs that are based on a certain set of information/evidence should then be malleable in the face of new information/evidence. But if there is an additional component of desire for others to be less valuable, capable, worthy of opportunities and outcomes then information that undermines a belief is vulnerable to being ignored or dismissed.
I’m not suggesting a new idea here, but am considering how to tackle the desire problem. Having talked to hundreds of residents in my community about the design and values of our public schools in the past several months, I have confronted the explicit desire for others to be less (and the underlying fear) numerous times. It has come out in the form of crying, arguing, yelling at me, blaming vulnerable groups, closing the door in my face or numerous cues displayed on private property (e.g., giant US flags, signs, etc.). Trying to discuss the value and need for equity in education has felt tantamount to religious debate and has often explicitly evoked religious stance as a final nail in the discussion (on the other party’s part).
So where does that leave us? I want to reach back to use women’s liberation as proof that we’re not playing a zero sum game, but I’m finding it a terrible example. White men’s lives have become significantly less cushy since women entered the workforce. They no longer have the luxury of expecting women to wait on them, fluffing their egos, unquestioningly satisfy their carnal desires, or absorb all of the free labor required for housekeeping and childcare. As a woman, I certainly don’t give a rip about men’s losses — but it does leave me in search of ammunition against the fear/greed/desire to leave power structures right where they lay.
Have I lost sight of something obvious over summer while talking to so many fearful and angry people?
Your notes on the ‘degrading’ of white male lives due to small reductions in power, giving rise to a collective anger is spot on. It is such an interesting topic because anger is often fear in disguise – and usually that fear is a fear of change.
What I have found really interesting when exploring the topic of social change & anger is how the oppressed have time to adjust to the changes because they are a) intentionally thinking about what they should be and b) fighting for them – but the oppressors are just faced with a loss and change without having put in time to think about how to adapt. I agree, it’s not really a boo-hoo moment, the oppressors should do the work but they don’t because they are often too hung up on trying to maintain a status quo than engage with the idea of change. It was one of the things I found fascinating about living in South Africa post-apartheid. You had communities of white people who had been brought up to hate and fear non-white people and keep them at arms length, then suddenly everyone was on equal terms and integrated. The amount of psychologically damaged white men I met that had gone from being in the army/police and having a war mentality against non-whites, to then having to integrate and have their children go to mixed schools etc. was astounding. Often they were angry, violent and had addiction problems. Of course they can do the work to de-radicalise themselves but I think with things like women’s liberation where the gains are incremental the social conversation about how to re-structure men’s inner narrative about their place in society just hasn’t been as loud. It’s why feminism is often branded as ‘hate against men’ because people are to scared to even start discussing what an alternative system can look like.
In terms of your reading on belief as a component for change – if everyone is fearful of change then the only way to decompress the anger and move into a state of belief is finding what they are scared of and addressing. Is it a loss of power? Or a worry that their children will end up with a value system counter to theirs? It’s compounded of course by a social structure that doesn’t really view children as their own people but as an extension of the self. But I guess those that succeed in being change makers are those that can find ways to help people transcend their fear of change. No big deal (lol!)