Ida B. Wells was born a slave. She was freed after the civil war, and went on to acquire a job as a teacher, and attend college. Years later she purchased a first class train ticket, and was told by the conductor she had to move to another area, which was for blacks only/coach. She sued and won a judgement against the train station, which was later overturned by the Supreme Court. From that point on Ida B. Wells used her voice to speak out and write about oppression. Many around her tried to convince her not to be so vocal, but Ida B. Wells was brave. She was instrumental in the formation of civil rights groups such as the NAACP. She was especially outraged and vocal about lynchings. Looking back, it is hard to believe some of the practices that took place were accepted. Ida B. Wells is a courageous example of the changes that can be made when individuals use free speech, and is now recognized for her work.
I’m going to make a prediction. I’m going to predict that many years from now, American Society will look back at things such as a judicial system that allows the killings of unarmed black men, and a sect of society that is outraged that some dare kneel during the National Anthem and realize that these accepted forms of oppression needed to be changed.
My question to you is about fairness. Looking back, hopefully we can all see that segregation wasn’t fair. Obviously, lynchings weren’t fair. Is fairness something that humans should be able intuitively realize, or they need to have it pointed out to them?
I had a high school teacher who used to frequently comment when her students would bring up an injustice , “did your mama ever tell you life was fair?” Wellll, actually, no. So can we all agree life is not fair, but should it be fair?
© 2026 – SoulSequel
16 responses to “fairness”
Life includes things which we can control and those of which we can’t. It seems to me that when we consider fair, as it relates to all things; we lump them together. To say life us unfair anyway, so we can use it as an excuse to rationalise our controllable choices is a cop out. It illustrates a weakness in the human spirit.
There is a significant category of life that is associated with personal relationships. That category is largely controllable, including the family members you are born with. Our behaviour is based on our choices.
A friend’s daughter recently had a baby with Downs Syndrome. As I watch her raise her, I am so inspired by her genuine love that is clearly as deep as is humanly possible and the sheer joy that everyone, especially Lucy, illustrate day after day. Some would say in this specific situation that Life isn’t fair, but not this family. They choose to make the most of circumstances as they present themselves and not just in this isolated issue. It is clear that it is who they truly are.
Fair doen’t ever just happen. We start with an uneven equation and then have to figure out the algebra, to manage it towards equality. Life is about everything and fair is about people. Two different twains on different twacks.
@spitfire3dc one of your best, I think!
I have a follow up q.
John Rawls suggested a distributive justice theory. Rawls saw justice as “fairness”. Under his theory (at least when it comes to social justice) he suggested that if we were born under a “veil of ignorance” we would naturally want money, resources, food, divided up equally, were it that we have no knowledge of our future lot in life. In reliable polls American have mentioned economic issues as the most important problem facing America, yet here the tax code is written in a way that the wealthy pay about half of the percentage that the lowest income people pay in income taxes. What happens if society isn’t doing the algebra to make it fair? Do you have a belief that the individual can do the algebra and make it fair? How would you suggest they do this?
@Scarlett oh man these are huge questions that can’t be addressed in one of my snippets but…hmmmm
Fair might be impossible in capitalism, because the foundation for that is all based on effort (combined with being in the right place at the right time). We have too many personality variations, dictated by circumstantial influences for everyone to be singing from the same book. Add the Seven Deadly Sins as variables in the equation and the math can never work out.
Communism is no better because reality dictates that everyone has to correspond to the lowest common denominator and management will require some form of hierchy that puts itself above those managed.
So, we come down to the individual effort and that by its very nature makes it separate, however, it’s really is the only way to set a trend towards fair and maybe, trend is as important as final destination. “Be the change” might be the best advice ever given, but the destination needs to be firmly defined in each individual’s mindset as the common denominator.
The problems remain in the variables, and predominant in those is our baseline associated with survival, which is our foundation that drives selfishness. As long as we are driven to survive personally, everything else becomes secondary and fair is elusive.
It takes conscious effort to see beyond our immediate needs and it’s interesting how crisis usually brings us together. We have thus tendency to create a “them”, which by default leaves an “us”. The broader the “they”, the broader the “us” and the broader the “us” the more likely the issue of distribution of fair.
Nature is a kind of “them” and Nature is an equaliser. Fair is attainable, but at what cost.
@spitfire3dc
I love telling people that capitalism is a many celled microcosmic socialist construct where their workplace is their true government where they answer to an oligarchy without a vote & don’t own the means of production.
I believe that it’s up to the boss on how equal the pay gets divied, & soon some crazy sunuvabeehatch is gonna try equal sharing thru job-rotation & training and probably get assassinated by robot ninjas, but it’ll happen. It’s the future cooperative-capitalism.
KING ME
@luftballooneyegouge Kinged.
There’s a difference between fairness and equity. Sometimes they’re not the same. Which leads us to the question, which is better?
@Jear77 what do you think?
@Scarlett I think both have a place. Which is more important depends fully on the situation.
I think you are going to like this new movie that starts this weekend about Thurgood Marshall.
@Gina indeed!
@gina4peas what do you make of the black man in va who has the arrest warrant out for him for “wounding” after he was beat up by white supremacists?
@Scarlett Highly suspect. This sounds like a corrupt police force operating here, and an example of why athletes are taking a knee.
@Scarlett ….to add:
@Scarlett I will let the Dailykos explain this situation:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/10/11/1706134/-Charlottesville-Victim-Charged-For-Being-Beaten-By-Six-Nazis-While-Black?detail=emaildkre
Fairness is one of those made-up fantasies not found in nature, and it’s one of the few things that make the human race salvageable.
Universal Compassion
(yechhhh)
Whether it should or should not, doesn’t and isn’t going to change, that it very often is not.
Whether we are talking about some grand notion of “fairness” or just the “fairness” of us getting the kind of soft ride we might want.
I grew up hearing a lot of “Who told you life was going to be fair??”. And even if it was cruelly wielded, it taught you to not always expect some referee to come along and throw a flag on the play. You learned how to adapt, how to deal with emotions and feelings, how to get on with life and not languish waiting for “someone else” to come and put your life (or usually just your feelings) back on-track for you.
Yea, there are injustices. We correct the ones we can, within reasonable statues of limitation. We can look back and say “That wasn’t fair” — and try to use it as a point of learning.
But our society has fallen HARD into a kind of victimhood-and-guilt quagmire, and are sinking quickly.
All the time thinking our selves quite wise and “progressive” for it.