Equity - a thought experiment

A thought experiment – “What if every day you/we became someone else? …randomly switched to become another person?” – like these questions just might help you to think differently about equity and equality. 

            How would this new reality help us to see our lots in life differently?  Would we care more about the state and condition of others, if we knew that we would soon experience their lives firsthand?

            Switching our lots in life happens and it makes great stories like the epic movie “Trading Places” – which actually is a movie with a great and ironic double switching plot.  You might remember that the movie started with Eddie Murphy’s character acting like a crippled conman.  He was faking disability. But disabilities are very common so much so that at some time we will probably all have one either permanently or temporarily.  There was a time when disability was considered an anomaly, but now we know exceptions are very common and eventually we all are the exception, or on the outside, or in the shoes of that “other” person that we hoped not to be.

            I remember when the American Disabilities Act was passed and signed by President George H. W. Bush.  People grumbled about the need to put ramps all over America.  The prohibitive cost was seen as an unnecessary burden for too many businesses, yet in the largest economy of the world.  New buildings had ramps installed from the start.  Older buildings often had rickety ramps added haphazardly.  And these ramps changed the entrances of buildings all across landscapes.  I grew up with a para-Olympian on my neighborhood court who raced by my house at the speed of cars in his titanium race wheelchairs.  He worked as a handicap consultant for businesses during those days.  Often, I thought about situations as he would have. 

            What does this have to do with our thought experiment?

            It should not tough for us to consider being switched to the life of someone else when we consider how often we end up wheel-bound across the arc of our lives? I don’t know when yours will be, but here were my experiences.  I crutched everywhere on my campus for over a month in college after suffering a terrific ankle injury playing basketball.  Today, I would have had a knee scooter and a walking boot, and I would have loved to see those ramps.

            As a young adult, I did learn to rock baby strollers over countless curbs, but today’s stores have massive curb cuts that ramp everyone – wheelchair, stroller, or shopping cart -- in and out. 

            Later in my life, I pushed my mom countless times to surgeries and cancer treatments for a decade.  Then, she became wheelchair bound.  Finding ramps and curb cuts became second hand.    

            At all of the teacher conferences I helped coordinate/run, I took many wheeled carts of materials into and out of those buildings.  I used every sidewalk cut, ramping sidewalk, wheelchair ramp that was available.  Yes, you can teeter-tooter a stroller onto a sidewalk, but a curb cut is so much nicer and the child thanks you for it. 

            The quick lesson here is that when we emphatically expand our circles of understanding and compassion to include all people in all conditions, we essentially are including ourselves.  For there will come a day when we find ourselves in these other conditions/states – helping family in a wheel-bound state and eventually ourselves.  The old riddle used to be, “What starts on four legs, goes to two legs and ends of three legs?” [Human - child, adult, elderly] Today, it would be, “What starts on four wheels, goes to two legs, intermittently is on four-wheels and one leg, and ends on four wheels?”  Of course, the answer to both is really “me.” 

            This is only one example of how stairs-bound humans can all benefit from a weight-bearing elevator every once and a while.

            How would your life be different if your “Groundhog Day” becomes a “Big,” “Freaky Friday” where you switch lives with others?  How much equity and equality would you want for all of these people that you would alternately be? 

            In order to live a civic and social life, we have become part of a collective, larger whole. A “whole” where we all see ourselves as locked in a state where the success of one is intermingled in the success of the whole community. 

            The voice of Dr. Seuss’s JoJo McDodd, the smallest Who in the story “Horton Hears a Who,” was the one last voice that was needed in order for all of the Whos to be heard by the world that was threatening to eliminate them – and eventually instead be safe.  It was JoJo’s inner longings to both be free and to belong (just be accepted as he was) that kept him silenced.  But when JoJo sang, everyone heard all of the Whos of Whoville and the whole community benefited. 

            In society, it so often seems that it is in our best interest to always advance our own selves and “take advantage” when others cannot also be advanced.  This is a short-term gain that creates a long-term cost of holding the whole of civic society back.  More often than we know, it will be us - all of us - that benefits from the inclusivity of a ramped-up equity.  To everyone else you are the someone else.  That adds up to you being much more “someone else” than you are yourself.