Man, Woman, Black, White ... Should it matter?

   The question of gender and/or race equality is gaining more focus everyday. Unfortunately I am seeing a trend that could well undermine the movement toward true equality. Most reasonable people agree that discrimination has plagued our civilization from the beginning. Some will point to the bible to justify their lack of tolerance. There have been societies where women rule. Black countries that have shunned whites. Dark skinned Dominicans that discriminate against their darker skinned Haitian neighbors. Whites justifying genocide against other whites based solely on religious belief. The examples are endless and it is difficult to find a group that didn't impose their dominance over another group at some time.

   Some will tell you that discrimination in nearly all forms has diminished over the past couple of decades. I say that all we have done is push it underground. It has become increasingly difficult to be a outwardly racist. Political correctness has simply come to mean that you watch what you say and not about what you really think. If you are against the LGBT community then you are a little more careful about who you tell. You seek out like minded people and band together. We have all been conditioned to judge those around us and feel the pressure to attempt to manipulate how they judge us by trying to be outwardly accepting.
   If most people were to take a good look at themselves, they would likely see a racist looking back at them. Be honest, as a young white female, you would feel more uncomfortable sitting on a subway full of black men than the same train full of white men. That is an indication of your inherent fear of blacks, whether you like it or not. It is a learned response. No-one is born to hate women, Asians or gays. The intolerance that we have is learned. The attitudes around us indelibly change the way we see the world.
   Watching the news this morning I was reminded of how little our beliefs have really changed. An eight year girl was singled out at a water park because she was not wearing a top. The anchor, (a man), pointed out that he would never let his seven year old daughter do that. This same man had recently said, "Why can't we just all learn to get along?", while reporting on the Charleston shooting. He condemned the hatred and intolerance. Sadly it is the differences that we perceive in others that cause the hatred and intolerance. That little girl is the same as the countless little boys running around in the same water park. Does he REALLY believe that men and women are equal?
   Equal rights is a concept that will perpetuate the discrimination. Equal rights implies that we are different but should be treated the same. The issue is not how we treat those that are different from us. We must stop seeing each other as different. It is a fundamental shift in our thinking and how we see the world. If civilization is to achieve "equality" then we have to describe each other as PEOPLE. Labels will continue to keep us "unequal". Let's stop applying labels in our everyday speech. Let's make it politically incorrect to call someone gay or transgender, they are just another person. Instead of saying, "the Asian guy in accounting", try, "you know, the guy that does our payroll, what's his name?". Let's start reprimanding each other for using race as a descriptor. You don't describe anyone, except Muslims, by their religion, and you are only calling them Muslim because they look like the Muslim you saw on TV. You are very likely wrong.
   We have men with girls' names, Shirley. We often shorten girls' names that end up sounding like boys' names, Al. So the question is, why have male and female names at all? Is it so important that we label our children so they know what they are. Turns out we are wrong occasionally anyway. Try it in your own life. If you cannot remove the labels from your own thinking then you can never truly see everyone the same. To be "equal", we all have to BE the same, not treated the same. When we stop seeing other people as different we will, obviously, treat everyone the same. Unless we can find another reason to dislike them.