If you are born in today's world financially and socially disadvantaged, upward mobility is a difficult hill to climb. In many areas of this world, the United States included, opportunities for wealth and a life of ease are the prerogative of just a few. This is totally contrary to the concept of social justice, which is the idea that privilege, wealth, and opportunity should be available, equally, for everyone.
The idea of a just society was the invention of the nineteenth century. It appeared during the Industrial Revolution and the civil revolutions that occurred throughout Europe. At this time the focus was on property, the equitable distribution of wealth, and capital.
In the middle of the twentieth century the idea started to expand. Gender, nationality, race, and environmental equality were included. The concept also expanded from just a governmental responsibility to create an equal society to include personal responsibility for alleviating the unjust conditions suffered by victims all over the world.
The drawbacks to establishing a truly equal society are broken down by experts into two basic parts. One is the way individuals in mainstream society treat others based only on personal bias, prejudice, fear, and misinformation. Examples of this are people who are treated unequally because of their gender, age, race, religion, social status, education, nationality, or mental and physical disabilities.
Unequal government regulations is the second part experts cite. This is when a government, knowingly or not, creates conditions that deny, limit, or make it difficult for certain segments of society to have access to opportunities given to other segments of the same society. This can be voting laws that allow redistricting and require voters to have certain forms of identification. It might be labor laws that limit the rights of workers.
It can also include environmental laws that favor industrial conglomerates by not restricting how they pollute the air a community breaths or the water it drinks. In the United States, some schools are still segregated by race. In some regions of America, people of a certain race or nationality are more likely to be stopped and harassed by law enforcement.
Unjust treatment by societies is divided into two categories, the direct and the indirect. Direct inequality comes about when individuals within a society deny rights and opportunities to certain individuals and not to others. An example might be the owner of a public restaurant who refuses to sit individuals in the dining area because of what that owner perceives is their sexual orientation. Direct inequality is also segregating schools and public facilities based on race.
Indirect inequality happens when governmental regulations are put in place that don't have specific language inhibiting the rights of a segment of the population, but have the effect of doing just that. Laws limiting mail in voting and voter identification are an example of this. Buying clothing that was manufactured in sweatshops supports the unsafe conditions of the laborers who work in them.
The idea of a just society was the invention of the nineteenth century. It appeared during the Industrial Revolution and the civil revolutions that occurred throughout Europe. At this time the focus was on property, the equitable distribution of wealth, and capital.
In the middle of the twentieth century the idea started to expand. Gender, nationality, race, and environmental equality were included. The concept also expanded from just a governmental responsibility to create an equal society to include personal responsibility for alleviating the unjust conditions suffered by victims all over the world.
The drawbacks to establishing a truly equal society are broken down by experts into two basic parts. One is the way individuals in mainstream society treat others based only on personal bias, prejudice, fear, and misinformation. Examples of this are people who are treated unequally because of their gender, age, race, religion, social status, education, nationality, or mental and physical disabilities.
Unequal government regulations is the second part experts cite. This is when a government, knowingly or not, creates conditions that deny, limit, or make it difficult for certain segments of society to have access to opportunities given to other segments of the same society. This can be voting laws that allow redistricting and require voters to have certain forms of identification. It might be labor laws that limit the rights of workers.
It can also include environmental laws that favor industrial conglomerates by not restricting how they pollute the air a community breaths or the water it drinks. In the United States, some schools are still segregated by race. In some regions of America, people of a certain race or nationality are more likely to be stopped and harassed by law enforcement.
Unjust treatment by societies is divided into two categories, the direct and the indirect. Direct inequality comes about when individuals within a society deny rights and opportunities to certain individuals and not to others. An example might be the owner of a public restaurant who refuses to sit individuals in the dining area because of what that owner perceives is their sexual orientation. Direct inequality is also segregating schools and public facilities based on race.
Indirect inequality happens when governmental regulations are put in place that don't have specific language inhibiting the rights of a segment of the population, but have the effect of doing just that. Laws limiting mail in voting and voter identification are an example of this. Buying clothing that was manufactured in sweatshops supports the unsafe conditions of the laborers who work in them.
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