What does fair mean? Does it mean that it is okay for a child of only four years to have his ribs penetrating the thin layer of skin that protects his tiny body from the world’s cruelty?Does it mean that it is okay for people to die in front of their families each day because their religions are not compatible?
No, fairness is more than just justice or what people like to believe is right. Fairness comes from compassion and love and the ability to put aside our differences and become one. To be fair is to be equal in the eyes of a judgmental society.
But being fair is a difficult task to accomplish. Simply observe your surroundings; we acknowledge the most despicable sins that’s have been cast by humankind’s vanishing the opportunity to be pure and fair. Stereotypes and generalizations, as well as just an ignorant mind, can awaken the monster that lives deep inside our hearts. As a result of such disturbance, hatred is rising and taking apart human compassion and empathy. Fair can’t be based on what the majority believes is correct because then the holocaust and slavery would be identified as the “right thing to do”. What about those who died suffering because they were separated from their loved ones and physically as well as mentally abused. They were demoralized and corrupted. Was it fair for them?
Yet it was considered fair for those who believed that there are humans that are superior to others because they have a “better religion”, because they have a “better language” or because they have a “better skin color”. In this case, fair doesn’t appear quite equal, it only proves to show that humans are capable of defining “fair” according to how it would benefit them personally, in order to somehow justify the wickedness that has poisoned our minds.
We committed crimes. We dress them up as a human necessity to purify, there’s sparse fairness throughout the world.
Even today we live with the same idiosyncrasy and we see it reflected in the leaders of our own nation. Recently one of the candidates for the presidency based his whole campaign on the tearing down of minorities. He established that “They’re sending people that have lots of problems and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists, and some, I assume, are good people” –Donald Trump. The assumption that all immigrants have the same purpose is absurd. Many of the people that immigrate into this country do it because they are escaping a sad reality: high rates of violence, poor education, hunger, poverty between others reasons that push them to risk their families safety in order to pursue the so cherished American dream.
The day of the election arrived as a train in the search of its final destination. The room felt humid and the tension gave it a bittersweet taste that filled my mouth when I heard the winner’s name. My mind was drowning in questions about what would happen to that percent of the population that is considered a minority, was it fair for them to slowly disappear little by little by the hands of discrimination? My colleagues that have come so far in their education and have made remarkable progress in school now saw themselves destroyed and without hope because of the nonexistence of paper that proves that they can exist here. It’s not fair that hard work, determination, among other qualities that we as immigrants possess are not being taken into consideration before we are forced to leave our future here…
But there is still fairness in this world, there still hope. If you search carefully, in the students’ smiles accepting each other without prejudices. There are still people that are a solidarity to one another in difficult moments. There are still people that want you to succeed and no matter what race, religion, gender etc… they accept you.