Equity unattainable in and outside of the home, says racial justice expert

Kevin McGary—President of Every Black Life Matters, Chairman of the Frederick Douglass Foundation of California (FRED)—addresses why the well-intentioned idea of equity cannot inform local public policy decisions, as advocated by SJ’s Racial Equity Action Plan. If it’s impossible to secure equal outcomes within one’s family, what’s the point of demanding it in the workplace and society more largely? To receive daily updates of new Opp Now stories, click here.

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Now, what’s interesting about equity is equity, in today’s vernacular, means that we all share in the exact same outcome, irrespective of perhaps our skills, talents, and abilities. If we’re in a particular workplace, we should all share in the same outcome.

What’s interesting, though, is when we reflect on that concept, we should reflect on whether that actually works within our own history. Think about your family. If you have siblings, do you actually share the same outcomes as your brothers and sisters? You were raised in the same household, the same time, generation, and in the same environments, do you have the same outcome? Very likely not. It’s because we’re actually human, we’re individuals, we’re dynamic, and everybody has different talents, skills, abilities, and attributes they can bring to the table at any particular point in time.

So demanding that we all share in the same outcome really doesn’t work well. Actually, it kind of doesn’t make sense at all. We should think about this: If it doesn’t work within our family, how can we make demands that it work outside of our family in our workplaces and other places like that?

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Image by Shawn Spencer-Smith