All People Are Not Born Equal...

“All men are not created equal. Some are born swifter afoot, some with greater beauty, some are born into poverty and others born sick and feeble both in birth and in upbringing. In sheer scope of ability every human is inherently different.”   

A beautiful quote, from an anime. An anime, for those that don't know, is a sort of animated cartoon very often aimed at older audiences. And the moment you know this what do you then think of me? At a 2012 political debate, the GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain quoted Pokemon 2000, a Pokemon movie, in a speech:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o95KxKKrgkQ 

Cain said. "Life can be a challenge. Life can seem impossible. It's never easy when there's so much on the line. But you and I can make a difference. There's a mission just for you and me."

Aside from the man's other political standings and the fact that he, intentionally, misquoted the proper source, the consensus, and likely your opinion prior to me pointing this out, was likely the same as this picture:

What kind of weird, moron, quotes Pokemon –> an anime –> A “children's” television show. But that quote is objectively beautiful, just as the first quote I put in is, as is this quote from the Pokemon, the movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back, “I see now that the circumstances of one's birth are irrelevant. It is what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are.”

So what is the point? Certain kinds of stereotyping and discrimination are both tolerated and committed by astounding amounts of people, even the people that preach loudest that we should tolerate everybody. In The Truly Disadvantaged, William Julias Wilson points out that certain issues such as not having a father are what lead to the poor conditions within black communities, but this too is a problem. This stereotypes a traditional view of the nuclear family, that there has to be a man and wife and that they need to have that classic American dream marriage, house, etc. I'm not trying to badmouth the man, but simply to point out that even brilliant thinkers with great points are capable, and do, stereotype and discriminate. In fact, you might even say that it's human nature to some extent.

And on that topic is the problem that also seems to be one of human nature. When an issue arises such as racism, or discrimination, among blacks in certain areas, ie why these people are disadvantaged as they are, people come up and shout their theories and ideas as if it's the end all theory of everything. But they, and we, are pitted with a next to impossible task if it came to truly defining all the factors that arise from complex issues.

A sort of analogy might be like that of the butterfly effect. The butterfly effect is very unlikely to be true in the sense that a butterfly flapping it's wings on one side of the world could cause a tsunami on the other side, however, imagine a more literal, realistic example. Say the American government increased taxes on the super rich by 25% as is a commonly quoted sort of suggestion. So they do this, and then China puts up an embargo. Turns out 'x' did this to 'y' and 'y' did 'L' to 'x' and 'z' and 'q' , etc, etc. a thousand times over.  It was now in China's best interest to stop trading goods with America. Now, granted, this is an extreme example but could you possibly see all of the factors that led to it even after the fact?

 No... the answer is no. You can see certain aspects such as x, y, and z but for massively multi-faceted issues such as discrimination in a country of 300 million people you simply cannot see all the variables.  However, this does not mean you should not try to examine the variables, but rather, to be humble in your examinations and realize that you are very, very likely unable to see the forest for the trees.

Even the people that you see as the villains in the world, or at least the people in America, are generally, genuinely trying to make the country a better place; it's simply that everybody has a different idea of how to do so. But Mr. Wilson made one other great point, my favorite point he made: people are too afraid to address issues for fear of being called racist or insensitive. This is all too true... and on the same frontier, people who want tolerance, ironically, demand that tolerance with a Nazi-esqe force.  (See South Park -- The Death Camp of Tolerance -- Season 6, episode 14 for an incredibly relevant and funny example (TV MA)).

Science has become the god of a people. Our best ideas are it's principles that, while vastly proven to be true, may well not be. In fact, those same people most of all will quote the typical “our school books are rewritten every 50 years” quote, but if you dare even suggest, purely theoretically, that, perhaps something is not true, their intolerance will hold no bars.

The world is not black and white. Sometimes a joke is just a joke. Sometimes words are just words. Sometimes a crime is just a crime.  Not everybody is out to get you.  In fact, I daresay that the vast majority of people the world over aren't in any way out to get you, nor do they care about you in any way.  

Except ISIS... they're probably out to get you.