The law is one thing – human behavior is another. While we might think a policy or law will solve a problem, common practice is often more powerful than written rules. We need to remember the statutes and court decisions that enabled the slave trade, the Jim Crow era, and discriminatory housing and lending were based on the prejudices and rationalizations of the majority. These kinds of laws did nothing more than confirm what most people were already doing. For a long time, the noble idea that “all men are created equal” did little to change the way many people were treated.
Further, we need to keep in mind Brown v. Board of Education didn’t end school segregation and the Civil Rights Act didn’t end discrimination, mainly because making everyone’s rights equal is as much a matter of culture as law. Like the joke about how many psychiatrists it takes to change a lightbulb, it depends on how much the culture really wants to change.
In 1957, Louis Armstrong commented on white students supporting segregation in Little Rock: “They’ve been ignoring the Constitution, although they taught it in school. But when they go home their parents tell them differently, saying you don’t have to abide by it because we’ve been getting away with it for a hundred years.”
Einstein said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” We can make new laws, policies, rules, and regulations hoping to nudge people in the right direction. But, unless people are convinced to move on their own, they will try to “get away with” whatever they’ve done in the past, even if that means denying others civil rights, a living wage, healthcare, or a chance to improve themselves. Some will equivocate, make excuses, or just procrastinate, saying things like, “let’s not move too fast.” The complacent will fall back on “majority rule” and keep what they have, regardless of whether others benefit.
Some members of the majority try to blame minorities for many evils, as if to justify the way of things. Yet, the majority must recognize that they have been in charge all along. A minority cannot grant themselves equality under the law. Like an authoritarian parent or boss who doesn’t realize their decisions have made their family or workplace dysfunctional, members of the majority have a way of forgetting that their decisions have consequences. Numerically speaking, the decision-makers – predominantly white, Christian, and male – are responsible for most of the problems we face. In short, majority rule also means majority responsibility, because minorities generally don’t get to decide very much. If we want to achieve freedom, justice, and equality for all, it’s time to practice a majority “golden rule.” We must choose freedom, justice, and equality for others as we would for ourselves.
MurrayWorks 