Is Social Justice True Justice?

theopenpodium (25)in #politics • 7 years ago

Is racism built into the cultural framework of the United States? Are retributions and reparations required to right historic wrongs? Do the historic oppressors have a right or fair reason to speak on issues of the oppressed?

Most importantly, does social justice really create a system and culture of equality?

Recently, the term has been thrown around so much that it has lost nearly all meaning. As one for one breakdown, the term means what a person is entitled to (justice or just) from those around them (social or society). A worker is due their wages and the respect of doing so without regard to race, religion, color, or creed. That is good. So, what if the person is not granted their due based of these attributes? It would stand to reason that there would need to be measures in place to right these wrongs.

The two most prevalent examples of these wrongs in the US are slavery and the Jim Crow south. (1) These take no explanation as to how they fit into the category of a "social injustice". However, do these injustices prevail and still benefit a system to favor the historic oppressors?

On one side, it would seem so. There are many recent examples of unarmed black men that have been gunned down by the system's enforcers, the police. (2) The single biggest predictor of criminal potential (single motherhood) is higher in the black community than any other. (3)(4) In some areas, because the system is so terrible, that a black student is more like to end up in jail or dead, than in college. (5)

So, is there a slavery and Jim Crow connection? Racial correlation is not enough to prove a racist causation. It can be argued that the black community never truly recovered from these injustices. (6) Whites, being the majority of the US population and wealth holders, don't care because of white supremacy. (7) Therefore, there is at least a passive cultural and systematic disenfranchisement of the black and an empowerment to the white. At worst, an active implementation of oppression to keep blacks from dethroning whites who are fearful to give up control to a race whom they consider inferior.

Furthermore, the few whites that have identified this system and do not see racial inferiority in blacks have the responsibility to ensure that all people have a fair chance at the American Dream and not it's nightmare. The only way to do this is by implementing laws that promote what is due to people (justice) by their society (social). Essentially, the whites need to use their power an influence to help those whom cannot help themselves. It sounds a little something like this:

"... Send forth the best ye breed
Go bind your sons to exile,
to serve your captives' need...To veil the threat of terror And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple, An hundred times made plain To seek another's profit, And work another's gain..." - Rudyard Kipling, "The White Man's Burden" (8)

Or,

Theodore Roosevelt's belief (just like many of his contemporary progressives) that the black would need to be taught civility by the whites. That they were not socially (not biologically) evolved enough to comprehend self determination and governance. (9) Essentially, whites needed to use their superiority to teach all non-whites. 'The Negro' did not know, but must be taught. Although this sentiment was very progressive and open minded at the time. Also, it stands to reason that Roosevelt would probably not agree with this sentiment if he was born 100 yrs later, but it is racist by current standards.

Also, there is an uncanny resemblance to this sentiment and the modern social justice movement. This idea that it is the white man's social justice burden to feed, clothe, house, teach, and give healthcare to the non-white because of historic oppression. This robs the black community of it's identity, self-determination, and most importantly it's personhood. Person is the very foundation that (according to the social justice movement) the whites used to oppress the non-whites through colonialism and imperialism. Personhood is what the non-whites lacked, according to this idea of white supremacy.

So, is social justice true justice? No. It is the injustice that the 'negro' is to stupid to overcome the odds stacked against him. It is the injustice that says they need the white man to help them. It is the injustice that tells whites how evil they are. It is the injustice that creates white supremacy both within and without. Social justice is the injustice that created slavery, Jim Crow, and screwed over an entire generation of young blacks.

Social justice is the great injustice.