I understand that society breeds culture, and it can be hard to unpack everything, but we must. We must to understand one another. Why is it okay for us to be treated as equals only if I look like you? Only if I am familiar to what you have seen all your life?
Equality is another thing that people think they understand but in fact still need to work on understanding. I should not have to assimilate into your society to be treated as an equal. I should be able to be culturally different to you and still be viewed as a person.
Of course this may not be as easy now with our world having been through the slave trade, with the decimation of cultures other than Europeansβ (as seen with natives everywhere other than europe, even within europe do we see these divides, but not quite on the same level as those of us with darker skin than a paper bag), but still i really wish people would understand what it means to treat someone equally.
Equality isnβt just allowing people like me and my peers to enter the same spaces. Equality also looks like access. It looks like ice breakers where we talk about ourselves and our lives and really get to know one another and how different we all are (but also how similar we all are). It looks like ensuring that people have the ability to use ramps and working elevators (and in case of elevator failure, a stair ramp or something to allow disabled users access to higher floors). Equality is taking time to ensure everyone understands the assignment, no matter the skill level, the language, or the mental capacity.
But because as a world we are not yet at a point where we can share our lives with each other like this because there are too many who donβt understand why we should do this (because what is the point if reaching the level of intelligence that we claim to have, and still use it to hinder humanity instead of uplifting each other?).
If we still have people, who do not believe in the concept of a human soul saying that a person who terminates an unborn human, because they do not want to have it, is a bad personβ¦ why are we even bothering with advancing technology if we canβt even teach each other to understand a reality outside of our own?