Here is the last of our featured Cion essays, by Tommy Goetz.
Niall Quigley is a man who found himself looking at the same situation from a different vantage points. As a young man he sold women into bondage and was then later on illegally sold into slavery against his will. Although he was only another man’s property for a part of his life, he was a slave to slavery for the entirety of it.
From his earliest days in America, Niall encountered both racial and socioeconomic prejudice. Despite being white, he was Irish which in those days was almost the same or worse than being African. So even while he was considered a “free” man, Niall was suffering the bondage that comes with the prejudice of classification of some humans being better than other, that some humans can own others, the prejudice is part of the territory, part of the era.
I am still a slave to this prejudice. Socioeconomic prejudice enslaves majority of the modern world as affluent upper class looks down upon the bourquei middle class and proletariat lower class. Racial lines no longer define our society, as free trade and capitalism have made money play the role of measurement in society’s eyes. Money can buy the respect and power that race used to automatically award. A wealthy minority person can buy their way into affluence, where in past eras a glass ceiling would have limited them.
I encountered this socioeconomic prejudice first hand. As a high school student I attended a private upper class all boys school in the eastern suburbs of Cleveland. I was awarded financial aid because I was an athlete, but from the beginning I was nothing more than a hired hand to some people. Now not all the school was this way but Majority of the affluent WASP kind of students looked down upon me for coming from a middle of the road family. It is this judgment that enslaves not just me but majority of today’s society. Whether it is the prejudice of fearful minorities whose emotional walls block their judgment and don’t allow them to give outsiders a chance to prove their trustworthiness, or the condescending view of upper class peoples who view these minorities a subpar or second class, socioeconomic prejudice enslaves all, whether they harbor these feelings or not, they are victim to others and their judgmental ways.
The thing that sets me free is education. The gift of knowledge, that lets me see the errors in this kind of thoughts. Education sets me free from this judgment, to understand empathy and put ourselves in others shoes. Education shows us the mistakes from our pasts, the hatred it bred and why things are the way that they are today. Education is the answer, and I have been granted this gift of understanding.
So the forces of injustice in my life don’t come in the form of people but more the forces of prejudice that use people as hosts to work their webs of hate. These prejudices have worked throughout my past but thankfully the gift of education is setting me free.
Entries (RSS)
This was written so well. I really love it.