How many advocates for "justice" are really only advocates for "just us" - advocates for a "justice" that applies to just a single group and not to any others which might be experiencing similar discrimination or oppression? Too many.

Marta Donayre writes:

Both LGBTQ people and immigrants are accused of breaking “the law.” To some these are sodomy laws (repealed only as recently as 2003), to others it is immigration law. Yet powerful people wrote both legal codes to enforce their personal biases on those deemed “other.” In the heat of the argument, the humanity of people like me is completely lost since the “other” is less deserving, or needs to be eliminated somehow. [...]

[A]ll forms of oppression are the same. They are rooted in the notion that group A is better than group B, based on a label. Because group A is inherently better, then this group deserves something more and better, and they deserve it before group B. The label could be one of citizenship status, gender, sexual orientation, income level, skin color, religion, disability, class, etc.

Unfortunately, this sort of thinking pervades both communities about each other: gays tend to oppose illegal immigrants while immigrants tend to think very poorly about gays. Too often, people who suffer from genuine oppression and discrimination are not able to see the oppression and discrimination of anyone else — especially when it comes to groups which they don’t think highly of.

Ultimately, though, such blinders end up undermining their own cause because the denigration of any group’s humanity only serves to undermine the fully equal humanity of us all — and especially those who are otherwise vulnerable.

 

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