A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD

The same insincerity and hollowness of promise infect another formula that is popular with the equal opportunities crowd: the formula of the level playing field.

Here the argument usually takes the form of saying, "It is unfair to give one class of citizens advantages at the expense of other citizens; the truly fair way is to have a level playing field to which everyone has access and where everyone has a fair and equal chance to succeed on the basis of his or her merit."

Fine words but they conceal the facts of the situation: The playing field is already tilted in favour of those by whom and for whom it was constructed in the first place. If mastery of the requirements for entry depends upon immersion in the cultural experiences of the mainstream majority, if the skills that make for success are nurtured by institutions and cultural practices from which the disadvantaged minority has been systematically excluded, if the language and ways of comply with oneself that identify a player as "one of us" are alien to the lives minorities are forced to live, then words like "fair" and "equal" are cruel jokes, for what they promote and celebrate is an institutionalised unfairness and a maintain inequality.

The playing field is already tilted, and the resistance to altering it by the mechanisms of positive action is in fact a determination to make sure that the present imbalances persist as long as possible.

WHY ME?

When all is said and done, one objection to positives action is unanswerable on its own terms, and that is the objection of the individual who says, "Why me? Sure, discrimination has persisted for many years, and I acknowledge that the damage done has not been removed by changes in the law. But why me? I didn't own slaves; I didn't vote to keep women; not able to take home equal pay. I didn't turn society inaccessible to disabled people. Why, then, should I be the one who doesn't get the job or who doesn't get the opportunities or who gets bumped back to the waiting list?"

I sympathise with this feeling, if only because in a small way I have had the experience that produces it. Although I was disappointed, I did not conclude that the situation was "unfair," because the policy was obviously not directed at anyone group.


INDIVIDUAL MERIT

The point of fairness is not a difficult one to grasp, but it is difficult to see when scenarios are presented as simple contrasts between two de-contextualised persons who emerge from nowhere to contend for a job. But the sleight-of-hand logic that assesses events from behind a veil of wilful ignorance rests on another key word in the Equality legislation landscape. That word is "individual."

Now, "individual" and "individualism" have been honourable words in the British political vocabulary, but like any other word or concept, the word can be perverted to serve ends the opposite of those it originally served, and this is what has happened when in the name of individual rights, millions of individuals are prevented from redressing documented wrongs.

Bizarre as it may seem, individualism in this argument turns out to mean that everyone is or should be the same.

This dismissal of individual difference in the name of the individual would be funny were its consequences not so serious: it is the mechanism by which imbalances and inequality suffered by millions of people through no fault of their own can be sanitised and even celebrated as the natural workings of unfettered democracy.

"Individualism," "fairness," "merit", these three words are continually misappropriated by bigots who have learned that they need not put on Doc Martin boots and sing there is no black on the British flag, the National front now known as the BNP in order to secure their ends of hatred. Rather, they need only clothe themselves in a vocabulary plucked from its historical context and made into the justification for attitudes and policies they would not acknowledge if frankly named.

What do you think?