Equity is not a value of mine

With all the recent discussion concerning the world of DEI, I thought I might dip my toe into the subject as well. DEI (as in: Diversity, equity, and inclusion) is a relatively new concept, having gained more popularity only in the recent years, despite having roots much further in the history. This all gained much more popularity in public discussion right after the assassination attempt of former president Donald Trump. The event had many speculating whether The Secret Service agents failed to prevent and mitigate the effects of the attack because of DEI policies, as in having more women serve as agents.

I hold no strong opinion of that particular incident. Firstly, because I don't have enough information of the whole scenario to make that adjustment. Secondly, because I know that no matter the gender, male agents could have screwed things up as well as female agents. What I have been thinking about, though, has been the idea of DEI itself, and especially equity.

Out of diversity, equity, and inclusion it's the equity that bothers me the most. Many confuse this with equality, and with good reason too, since they as words do not only sound like one another, but are pretty damn close to each other as well. In fact, I doubt that there is even a word in every language out there for equity. Turns out that finding a copyright-free image describing the differences of equality and equity is quite hard, too. Shortly put, in the picture above, someone is pointing out that black LGBTQ lives matter and are thus valuable, and even more valuable than others, since it needs to be pointed out. Because black LGBTQ lives are deemed more under threat, they hold more intrinsic value, and are thus more important. That's equity. The idea of equality, on the other hand, would suggest that ALL lives matter, not just the black LGBTQ ones.

Upon browsing the web for a proper definition of equity, I stumbled across this website: Online Public Health, Equity vs. Equality: What's the Difference?. There, you will be able to find some pictures that point out the differences of equality, inequality, equity, and justice. Also, there are some examples of equality and equity. The first observation I made was how an apple falling out of a tree so that the person A will have it instead of the person B is labelled under inequality. That is not just inequality, but it is also the natural way of things. In time, apples will fall out of trees, and someone will be there to pick them up. Whether the apple falls into the hands of A or B is a matter of random coincidence.

Next up, we have all sorts of man-made constructs which help both the A and B to pick the apples up. Some of them are more beneficial for one than the other, taller ladders, for instance. The question that comes to my mind now is how did the B acquire those taller ladders?

Further down the article we arrive at the examples of equality vs. equity. Let's analyse all of them.

EQUALITY:  A city cuts the budget for 25 community centers by reducing the operational hours for all centers by the same amount at the same times.

EQUITY:  The city determines which times and how many hours communities actually need to use their community centers and reduces hours for centers that aren’t used as frequently.

In theory, the second approach would make more sense. It is more than obvious that city services should be designed in a clever and cost-effective fashion. However, what happens when a determination is made that the operational hours of a single community center can be cut down greatly, simply because of the least amount of usage? How will that affect the people under the influence of said community center? If we are not careful, we could very quickly fall into the situation of making it impossible for them to reach those services at all, resulting in the opposite scenario of equality: discrimination.

EQUALITY: A community meeting, where all members of the community are invited, about a local environmental health concern is held in English though English is not the primary language for 25% of the residents.

EQUITY: The community leaders hire translators to attend the meeting or offer an additional meeting held in another language.

I very much doubt that the community leaders opting for equity-based solution would hire those translators by financing the solution out of their own pockets. In other words, it would not matter what language you spoke and understood, everyone else would be required to pay for the translator to help you with your limitation. The same goes for the option of spending more resources to host another meeting in another language.

EQUALITY: All public schools in a community have computer labs with the same number of computers and hours of operation during school hours.

EQUITY: Computer labs in lower income neighborhoods have more computers and printers, as well as longer hours of operation, as some students don’t have access to computers or internet at home.

Yet again, someone else would have to pay for those computers printers. Even worse: this approach of 'equity' assumes that everyone living in a certain neighbourhood automatically either has or doesn't have access to a computer or a printer at home, meaning that based solely on the fact that a citizen is located somewhere, they are also either entitled or not entitled to a service unlike the majority of population, resulting in discrimination.

Out of those three examples, only the first one makes sense to me, and even then one would have to be very careful when implementing said policies.

What gets me is the sheer evil in this whole concept of equity. It is all about favouritism and discrimination based on the idea that someone else has too little, whereas some other guy has too much. The solution proposed by equity? Mandate to balance it all out with the approach of Robin Hood: steal from the rich and give to the poor!

Sigh. The reason we have concepts like social security is to help the most unfortunate ones among us – as we should. However, that does NOT mean an open bill for everyone who happens to be at a disadvantage in any scenario in life. I am a huge fan of equality, and despise this modern concept of equity. It is the nature and the environment around us that creates the setting in which some are more lucky than others in one or more ways. Whether it be financially, socially, physically, health-wise, emotionally... you name it, there will always be someone worse off or better off than you are. That is something we cannot and should not aim to change. What we should aim to change for the better are the conditions of those living in the worst possible overall situations in life, as well as the conditions in our own lives.

In my world, there is no such thing as good discrimination, as implied by this approach of equity. The whole idea reeks of Marxism and communism up to the point of catastrophic consequences and extreme evil. I cannot endorse that kind of ideology.