When fighting discrimination, no matter whether its racism, sexism, homophobia or xenophobia, there is always someone who will say something along the lines of “some people have it worse than you” in order to discredit your battle, they believe that just because injustice is bigger for someone else how it affects you is not valid enough to be fought or even pointed out. These people are usually not affected negatively by the unbalance in society rather their privilege is fueled from it, they are not the ones that will stand by your side most likely they already stand by the other.
I will not settle for less, does the achievements others have made before me so that I have rights make me fighting for more considered a whine? Does the privilege people hold mean they should stand down and ignore what still has not been achieved? When you say to not take it too hard you mean that we should settle for less, but imagine if the ones before us, if black people as slaves, if homosexuals without right to marry, if women without the right to vote did not stood up when they were completely silenced, we would be doing them a dishonor by being conformists.
Because of the people who fought before us we are closer to equality but because of us stands whether our children will no longer have a gap.
Of course I understand the privilege, that others face oppression in ways I or the people around me never will, how someone around the world is being pried from education because of their gender or someone who is being kicked out of their home because their sexuality because it allegedly “dampens” the family’s honor. For me things are not like that but it does not mean that I will not fight for those who do have it that way, because it should not be a privilege to live equally to others it should be a right.
I do not mean for us to fight every single discriminatory detail that comes in front of us, we need to choose our battles, have conversations that are worth having with people who are ready to listen. Sometimes we lose energy over something with somebody who is not willing to listen to anything other than their own reality, with people like that we have to simply feel remorse for the person. These people, we need to remember, have been conditioned to think that way by society what you can only do is go on with your battle and only hope for your actions to change their mentality.
Lastly, change does not happen overnight, you do not go to the gym one time and wake up the next day with abs, political and societal views work like that. Just like going to the gym it requires great mental strength and effort, but mostly commitment, it might seem like everyone believes your fight is dumb and that by yourself it will get nowhere, and that can only be true if you let it be. If you do not live to see the change of your words and actions they will leave a path for others to expand to the world.
