Skyla Marie Profita, 2/25/21, Day C, Pd. 8

 Skyla Marie Profita

PD 8 Mythology

Date Assigned: 02/22/2021

Dear Readers,

As you all are well aware of, 2020, and even 2021, have been quite the years. Not necessarily good ones, but they’ve been years, that’s for sure. It seems that every aspect of life has been completely turned upside down, as we try to make it through our last years of high school, watching the world burn down around us. That sounded a bit dramatic, but you get the point. Politics, and more importantly, the scary amount of overlap they seem to have with basic human rights issues, have been the center of attention for quite awhile now.

Instead of talking about inequity, oppression, and power in a more obvious sense, I’d like to focus on how issues of oppression and inequality have somehow become synonymous with politics. Frankly, it angers me. I think it was the political compass quizzes that pushed me over the edge, enough so to write an entire blog post about this (thank you Mr. Macula for giving us the assignment: it really inspired me!). Without further ado: let us talk about the inability to see the difference between politics and human rights.

To start off, here are my views on oppression, inequality, and power: no matter how much we try to sugarcoat it, it exists. Under our political system, under our society, we have been brought up in a world where one thinks they are better than their neighbor, because of their gender or the color of their skin. No matter how far we think we have come from a certain historical time period, such as the Civil War or the Holocaust, we haven’t entirely fixed the issues of our society. I’ve experienced the short end of the stick in many situations: as a woman, as a Jewish person, as a member of the LGBTQ+ community. I, for one, think that the reasons behind oppression and inequality can be put into two categories: either you’re ignorant, or you’re simply a bad person. Either way, I think that anyone who believes they are superior to someone else because of their gender, race, religion, or anything else of that sort needs to take a deep look inside of themselves, and change for the better before they spew hate out of their mouths again.

Back to the political compass quiz. Opening it, you would assume that you would be asked questions about your economic stances, or views on foreign affairs, right? WRONG! Of course, those questions were there, but I was met with far too many questions that resembled the following: “Do you support homosexuality? Do you think your race is superior to others? Do you think your religion is better than others and should influence the entirety of the government?” I wish I could lie and say I was surprised, but I wasn’t. For far too long, people have been mixing up politics with basic human decency. When it comes to issues of inequality, I don’t know what angers me more. Is it the fact that it exists at all? Or is the fact that people all across the country seem to think that equality is a political issue, rather than something any good person should fight for?

Shifting to the next topic: critical reflection of my own views. Growing up in a suburban, mostly white, mostly Christian neighborhood has always challenged me to let my views change and to let myself grow. Now that I’ve been exposed to more diversity, whether it be meeting other kids like me, or through schools, or even through online chats, I’ve always tried to listen totheir stories and use it to evaluate my own views. After any difficult conversation involving politics or social issues, I try to sit back and think about how my views can or should change as a result of hearing the stories of others. My perception of self and others comes along with the ability to reflect critically. I’m not a perfect person by any means, but I know that my ability to change my views is what makes me decent. The same goes for others: you can have different opinions than I do, and you can even blame hatred on your lack of education or your upbringing, but you should be able to change after deep thoughtful conversation. The only way we will be able to overcome issues of inequality and oppression is through being able to criticize not only others, but ourselves as well. Recognizing the difference between politics and human rights is merely the first step of a long road to equality.