Lola Adesioye

Wow, it’s December already. I haven’t blogged for a couple of months. I’ve been writing away, but just not blogging. All of that is changing, however, and I’m going to be blogging at least 3 or 4 times a week.

This year has been a great year so far, and as I’ve written about previously, I’ve been reflecting on my work and what I do with it. Much of my work has focussed on the society/politics arena and I’ve talked a lot about race-related topics and so on. I’ve come to realize that my big concern in the world, indeed the issue that I’d really like to be solved in my lifetime, is the elimination of inequality in all of its forms and the creation of dignity, empowerment and equity for all.

The following questions have been on my mind:

• Why it is that, despite the US having an African-American president, African-Americans in general still face shocking social, educational, health and economic disparities?
• Why do racism and discrimination still exist in the world?
• Why is it that New York, one of the richest cities in the world and a global economic center, still has some 35,000 homeless people sleeping on its streets or in shelters and begging for money and food?
• Why it is that in Nigeria and other nations in the world, a fraction of the population holds all of the wealth, status, opportunities etc while the rest suffer and that this is considered, by some, to be acceptable?
• Why, despite the advancements that women have made in society, do women still earn so much less than men and still face discrimination based on their gender?
• Why, in America, are some people happy to continue to have a healthcare system that they know that millions of people cannot benefit from?
• In fact, why is it that the world itself is so unequal?
• And, most importantly to me, why is it that despite technological advancements, increased knowledge, more information and more ‘solutions’ – giving money to homeless people, new laws and policies, aid to foreign countries etc – these issues have not yet been solved or have, in some instances, worsened?

The vision

I believe that we can live in a world in which everyone has equal opportunities. This doesn’t mean that everyone should be the same or have the same things, but that everyone can at least have equal access to getting what they need, at the very least.

I believe that everyone in the world should have the opportunity to eat well, be well educated, accumulate wealth, live in a decent house and so on. I believe that everyone on this earth can and should have a good quality of life and that the disparities and gaps that we see now – where very few people have access to everything – need not exist.

There is already enough food to feed every single person in this world and apparently enough money in this world for every human being to have $1million. Yet, every day almost one billion people go without food, 25,000 children die every day from hunger and some 80% of the world lives on less than $10 per day. How is this so? And, more importantly, is there a solution?

The solution

Yes – there is a solution and I believe that the solution to inequality is the same whether you’re dealing with racial, social, educational, economic or any other type of inequality.

For the most part we tend to accept that things are just what they are. We often fail to see that everything in life operates according to a system and that all systems are man-made and created, primarily through language. Life is always what we say it is, and it is that way until we say that it is something else.

Generally when an organization, individual or government goes to work on a problem, they do so at the level of what can be seen, at the surface level, rather than tackling the root, that is the system – the various belief systems, conversations, thought processes etc – that actually keeps on reproducing and manifesting the external events. If we were to examine the systems at work in the world, we’d see what’s really going on, we’d be able to shift them and then solve the issues once and for all. As the saying goes, if you want to change the fruit – the outcomes and results – change the root.

When I talk to people about ending inequality I hear responses like ‘it’s not possible to have an equal world’, ‘it’s survival of the fittest’, ‘not everyone can be the boss, there have to be some workers’ and so on. The idea that is prevalent – the general conversation of society – is that the world is inherently unequal and that inequality is what’s normal.

We believe in dualities: that there must be rich and poor, that there must be those on top and those on the bottom, there must be some people who suffer and others that do well, even at the expense of those who suffer. In fact, if you look at the nature of consumerism, it is based on people trying to scale the totem pole so that they can be the ones at the top rather than at the bottom. That’s the system, the conversation, that is at play in the world. Is it any wonder that we live in a world that reflects that?

If we started to create an entirely new paradigm for the world, if we started to create, engage in and commit to an entirely new global conversation about equal opportunities there would be a fundamental shift.

I would not be surprised, for example, if healthcare disparities and inequalities continue even after President Obama successfully introduces healthcare reform. Likewise, I was not surprised that racism has continued despite having him in office nor that it continues despite there being other high profile and successful black people and different legislation in force etc. Racism has survived, and will continue to survive, because the system at work – the current conversations that the world has about in-group/out-group and the need for some to be on top and other not – will always give rise to inequality.

Imagine if, rather than going to work on just the healthcare system, President Obama tackled the notions that it’s ok for some people to have things while others don’t, that it’s ok for some to suffer and others to have everything, that it’s acceptable for people to die every day because they are not well off enough to have the basics… What if he really looked at those conversations, and started to unravel what it is that keeps them in place? Because none of that is fixed – it’s all created and human beings created it. And once we have unravelled the systems that don’t work, we can create new ones that do!

In conclusion

We need to shift the context in which inequality arises and work to create justice, dignity and equity for all. Racism, discrimination, hunger and other disparities are simply external manifestations of a context, a conversation, a system that we live inside of. Since we live inside of systems and conversations, let’s create ones that uplift and empower all of us in the world and ones that produce the kind of world that we’d like to see.

What do you think? Let me know!