Equal civil rights for all

The Future We Want – Part 3

By Jan S. Gephardt

Now here’s a radical thought: a country where equal civil rights for all is a reality. Do we have any such place in the world today? I can’t say for sure, but I do know one thing. The United States is currently no such place.

Yes, I know Thomas Jefferson’s words in the Declaration of Independence said it’s “self-evident” that “all men are created equal.” But even he and his fellow rich, white, male, slave-owning revolutionaries didn’t mean that literally.

I have been hearing a wide variety of exceptions and variations on this quote all my life, mostly to point out ways it’s not true or fudge the “rule,” rather than to seriously embrace the idea that it actually, like ever happens. Because, of course, we realize it doesn’t.

(Courtesy of Quote Thee).

Equal, with Rights?

The rest of the “all men are created equal” thought immediately links equality to rights: “that they [the “all men” who are equal] are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” But, to quote another popular phrase, “The devil is in the details.” Certainly, Thomas Jefferson didn’t think “all men are created equal” meant all of humanity. Considering how he treated Sally Hemings, he certainly didn’t mean either women or slaves.

Nor did the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights clearly establish just exactly what “unalienable Rights” the Creator (or, more practically, the government) might have endowed upon them. “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” is a bit too vague and sweeping to be helpful in a court of law. It certainly can’t, and never did, guarantee equal civil rights for all.

I spent four weeks in July 2020 discussing the First Amendment alone, and how difficult it is to nail down specifics. If you’d like to see those posts, they start with “Freedom of Religion: Is the First Amendment an Aspiration?” (July 2, 2020) and run through “The Importance of Freedom of the Press” (July 29, 2020). But the quest for equal civil rights for all goes beyond the First Amendment.

(See credits below).

Equality and Equity

It would be easy and convenient if equality and equity were the same thing, achievable by simple weights and measures. But they’re not. Equality means everyone gets exactly the same treatment, or pay, or goods, or whatever. And in some cases that’s exactly the right approach.

Two people do the exact same job for a company? They should be paid equally – even if one is a woman or a member of a minority. That’s not to say that if one does extra work s/he shouldn’t be paid a bonus. But again, each should get an equal chance to earn that bonus. That’s simple fairness.

Sometimes it’s that easy, but most of the time It’s not. To echo Napoleon the Pig in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, it becomes a problem when “some animals are more equal than others.” When the goal is actual, genuine equal civil rights for all? Oh, that’s never been easy! In fact, lately it seems to be growing harder and harder to secure.

(Courtesy of Magical Quote).

 

A Tale of Two Little Girls

Here’s another equality/equity hypothetical situation. Say there are two smart little girls. One lives in a nice suburb, goes to an expensive science camp in the summer, and has a grandma in another city who likes to take her to the theatre and kids’ museums whenever she visits. She is well-traveled, well-fed, in excellent health, and her education never lacks for enrichment.

The other kid grew up in a series of shabby, drafty apartments, in between stints of living in the family car. She’s always hungry. She lives in a dangerous part of town, where people sometimes find dead bodies on the street or in their yards. Her mom works two jobs and can’t stay home with her much, so her auntie keeps an eye on her, along with her three cousins, whom the auntie favors. They never go out because Auntie’s immigration status is “iffy.”

Do these two little girls, of equivalent intelligence, both have an equal chance to do well in school? Of course not. That’s where the question of equity comes in. The first little girl has all kinds of advantages the second one can’t access without extra help from the school and the community. Help she may or may not (probably won’t) get, depending on where she lives and what the State Legislature’s priorities are And, as we all know, these priorities are rarely in the best interest of smart little girls in poverty-stricken neighborhoods.

(See credits below).

 

What’s the End Goal?

The reality in which we live is far different from any abstract ideal of equality. And even equality needs adjustments in how resources are distributed, to provide true equity. The cartoon above offers a fourth state, “Liberation,” which deserves consideration as well. But, for today, let’s just focus on equal civil rights for all. And let’s define “equal civil rights for all” as equitable access to opportunities, equal protection under the law, and an equal say in how we are governed.

I’ve talked about equity and equality above. This series, “The Future We Want” focuses on not only what kind of future we want to live in, but how science fiction can help us form a vision of that future. A vision is essential, if we’re to achieve almost any goal. But what do we see around us? Certainly not equal civil rights for all! We must apply a large dose of imagination for that.

(See credits below).

 

What Would Equal Civil Rights for All Look Like?

Equitable access to opportunities implies no glass ceilings, no systemic racism, and no history of apartheid and genocide – or appropriate reparations made, to recognize such a history. There’d be no antisemitism, no Islamophobia, or any other religious or ethnic bias. It would allow no gender, sexuality, identity, or age bias. (I’m already imagining the groans about political correctness, but wait! There’s more).

This hypothetical system also would accommodate for differently-abled candidates. We’d ideally be able to work out a system much like the “blind auditions” widely adopted by symphony orchestras and other, similar venues. What system could we use? Mm. Good question. But I’d welcome ideas in the Comments, about how to achieve more equitable access to opportunities for everyone.

Equal protection under the law would yield racially proportionate rates of conviction and incarceration – something we’ve never had in the United States. It would end the need for Black parents to give their children “The Talk” about what to do when they are (inevitably, no matter what they do) stopped by police. It would end the criminalization of poverty and the routine abuses to persons experiencing houselessness. And it would mean public defenders’ offices were as well-funded and prestigious as prosecutors’ offices.

(Courtesy of Moonsling).

 

How about the Civil Rights the Civil Rights Movement Fought for?

An equal say in how we are governed would mean no gerrymandering (this a bitter issue with me right now, living as I do in the proposed-to-be divided Kansas Third District). It would mean that it would never be illegal to offer water and a sandwich to would-be voters standing in line for hours. It also would mean that no voters would have to stand in line for hours!

That there’d be widely-available mail-in balloting. That there’d be more than one drop-box for ballots in enormous districts such as Harris County, TX. And that all election officials would act in strictly nonpartisan manner.

An equal say in how we are governed would – in the United States – mean changes in the Senate (it’s extraordinarily undemocratic). Also, probably the abolition of the Electoral College (a system which routinely renders my Kansas-based vote for President irrelevant every four years). Both of these institutions were compromises designed to keep smaller states and minority populations from being drowned out by the influence of larger states. Neither “fix” is improving equity today in the way the Founders hoped.

(See credits below).

 

Science Fiction and Equal Civil Rights for All

We need to see imagined worlds where it is possible to reach for, and maybe even achieve, more equal civil rights for all. In my opinion, one of the very best ways to do that is to create compelling, interesting stories about the future that show people what this concept would look like, feel like, and be like. Speculative and science fiction writers, this is our moment! Some of you may want to wallow in dystopia, but please! Offer us hope as well!

I care a great deal about equity and equality. It is one of the major themes that informs my science fiction. I designed Rana Station, the setting for most of my XK9 stories, as a place where all-too-fallible humans (and a couple of other species) try to create a place that helps all residents reach their full potential. But developing a vision for our world will need more than one small indie press, and more than one little-known writer advocating for better visions of the future.

It will need many more of us. It will need leaders in the field to stand up and say “this is worth writing about!” (thank you Neal Stephenson and Kim Stanley Robinson, for two examples of writers who are). Science fiction has changed the real world in many ways already. It’s time for us to do it again. And a good place to start is creating a vision of equal civil rights for all.

IMAGE CREDITS

Many thanks to Quote Thee for the Thomas Jefferson quote-image (originally from IZQuotes, but that page wouldn’t function for me). I also appreciate AZQuotes for the Harvey Milk quote; Quotesgram for the one from Elizabeth Cady Stanton; and BrainyQuote for the one from Chief Joseph (Montage by Jan S. Gephardt). And I’m grateful to Magical Quote for the Orwell “All animals” quote-image.

Angus Maguire created the “Reality-Equality-Equity-Liberation” image for Interaction Institute for Social Change, which holds the copyright and granted permission to use the image. I appreciate all! I created the “The Job of speculative and science fiction” image with some help from Chaz Kemp’s licensed Nebula 2 artwork, © 2021 by Chaz Kemp. This image was first used for my “Looking for Hope” post.

I’m grateful to Moonsling for the quote-image about equal protection under the law from Samuel Dash. I first assembled the quote from a tweet by the Rev. Raphael Warnock (now US Senator Warnock) in November 2020. It's now reformatted slightly and discovered that the background photo is originally from the Baltimore Sun, taken at the Maryland primary election, June 2, 2020 by the multitalented Karl Merton Ferron. Deepest appreciation to all of them!

See Diversity as a Strength

 "The Future We Want" Series - Part 1

By Jan S. Gephardt

I want a future in which we see diversity as a strength. Yeah, right, you might well scoff. Jan, have you noticed the hate crime statistics, lately? That’s not where we’re headed!

But what if it could be?

A few weeks ago, I posted an article about using science fiction as a way to envision a more positive future. Today, in the first of three planned posts, I’d like to delve a little deeper into that idea. In future posts I plan to talk about the environment and human rights. Today, let’s explore ways that science fiction writers can help readers see diversity as a strength.

When we see diversity as a strength, we better understand what’s at stake. (LATESTLY).

Diversity is a Mark of a Vibrant Community

Scientists have long since discovered that biodiversity improves the stability and resiliency of an ecosystem. Similarly, sociologists and historians attest that civilizations have thrived most brilliantly when cultural diversity increased. Whether cultural mixing arises via trade, conquest, or cataclysm-driven migration, throughout history the result is predictable. Cultural cross-pollination fosters innovation and new ideas.

The cultural and genetic mixing generated by the ancient Roman Empire created a legacy that endures to this day. Poorly-conceived though they were, the medieval Crusades led to the European Renaissance. Trade routes such as the Silk Road in Asia and Trans-Saharan routes in Africa stimulated vibrant cities and civilizations. I blogged about another fruitful period of Japanese/European cross-cultural exchange a few years ago, in “A Tale of Hokusai and Cézanne.”

A great case in point is Medieval Cordoba, where Muslims, Jews, and Christians lived in relative peace. Its leaders could see diversity as a strength. They kept their subjects free from religious persecution, and created arguably the greatest city in Europe at the time.

Cultural tensions are inevitable, but we must not let them destroy the creative synergy of cultural exchange. (See Credits below).

How Can Science Fiction Help us See Diversity as a Strength?

Why – other than the fact that I write science fiction – do I see sf as a vehicle to foster a brighter future? Wouldn’t it be better to go on a lecture tour like Al Gore with his “inconvenient” slideshow? Well, there’s a place for that kind of presentation.

But as advertisers long ago figured out, the very best way to make an idea compelling is to embody it in a good story. I touched on this a few years ago when I blogged about the influence of science fiction on environmental awareness.

But I’m not the only one who sees sf this way. That bastion of liberal arts, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has recently offered a class on contemporary science fiction. The course uses 21^st Century science fiction novels (see the illustration below) to help students see the world in a different way. These books provide a starting place for discussions that grapple with problems and questions we’ll confront in the future.

The government of China agrees with me in this, too. It has begun to view science fiction as an avenue for the use of “cultural soft power.” Not only did it win a Worldcon bid (Chengdu, 2023), but it has begun to promote science fiction stories of which it approves (political critique is a whole different story). It’s also a growing player in the global movie industry.

I’d rather not let the government of the Peoples Republic of China envision our future for us, thanks. If you agree, seek a range of different voices—and see diversity as a strength!

These books spark discussions about the future, at MIT. (See Credits below).

Can You Envision A Diverse and Harmonious Future?

A lot of people can’t. In our current political climate, unfortunately, anti-Semitism, anti-Asian hate, and the ever-popular urge to oppress Black people are enjoying an apparent groundswell of enthusiasm.

This is happening alongside a steady, depressing drumbeat of homophobia, trans-phobia, and anti-immigrant measures against Muslims and people from anywhere in Latin America. We have armed militias of people abroad in the land who seriously want to re-enact The Turner Diaries in real life.

If ever there was a moment to promote a new vision, one that can see diversity as a strength, surely today gives us that moment. Dystopian science fiction has long depicted “worst-case scenarios,” and they genuinely do have a role to play. But how about some more positive visions to function as an antidote to the poison?

We have an uphill climb to convince some people this is true. (TextAppeal).

Creating a More Positive Vision

In teaching and parenting, “catch ‘em being good” is a sound approach. If a child/student receives positive reinforcement, this offers a better foundation for going forward than always just being told “no” or “don’t.”

Kids are feeling their way along, trying to figure out how to “be” in the world. Positive reinforcement offers a map, a goal, a sense of what is desired. Negative reinforcement only tells them what not to do. How efficiently do you think you could get to a destination if you had a map that onlytold you where not to go?

That’s why I think we need positive future visions, as well as dystopian takes. Can we please stop fictitiously killing the earth and our fellow beings all the time? It’s good to be able to foresee that “this trend could lead to a bad outcome.” But in my opinion it helps more to see that “this really might be a good way to move forward.”

Negative messages help little when you’re searching for a way forward. (See Credits below).

A Vision for a Way Forward

I certainly can’t claim to be the only science fiction author who ever thought of this. I read a review just the other day for Central Station by Lavie Tidhar that you might enjoy. And Forbes recently published a whole list of sf novels with positive climate-change explorations. Moreover, multiculture-positive thought experiments seem to be the direction N.K. Jemisin is headed in her Great Cities project, if The City We Became is any guide.

What I want to do with my XK9 novels, in part, is give readers a glimpse, a way to see diversity as a strength in action. What would a society/culture/polyculture look like, if it could truly be mostly free of racial animus? If religious intolerance was mostly absent, and near-universally frowned upon? If the society was mostly without homophobia, trans-phobia, or a backlash against any other individual expression of identity? (I say “mostly” and “nearly,” because humans are humans).

It's fun to explore those ideas in my XK9 novels. I hope my readers enjoy it, too. And I’d like to see more authors ask how they can inform a more positive view of possible futures. Especially those that see diversity as a strength.

IMAGE CREDITS

Many thanks to “LATESTLY” for the quote-image featuring the words of Diane Ackerman, and to TextAppeal, for the quote-image featuring the words of Stephen R. Covey. The other quote-image, featuring the words of Robert Alan Aurthur, was assembled by Jan S. Gephardt, with help from a Wikimedia image. It shows a detail of the Almoravid Minbar, commissioned by Ali Bin Yusuf Bin Tashfin al-Murabiti in 1137 for his great mosque in Marrakesh. Photo by By إيان - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, from Wikimedia.

The two photo montages also were conceived and assembled by Jan S. Gephardt. The montage inspired by the MIT science fiction literature class is composed from a photo of the MIT Media Lab Building from Dezeen, three book covers, and a magazine cover. Books: The Fifth Season, by N. K. Jemisin (thank you, Target). The City & The City, by China Miéville (thank you, Penguin Random House). Annihilation, by Jeff VanderMeer (thank you, LA Times, FSG Originals, and illustrator Eric Nyquist). Apex Magazine’s cover features Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™, by Rebecca Roanhorse.

The montage of the map hemmed in by “Do Not Enter,” “Road Closed,” “Road Ends,” and “Dead End” signs includes a map of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. I chose it for its map-folds and size, not to express any opinion of those lovely states. It comes courtesy of The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. Road signs come from a variety of sources. Driving Tests provided a “Do Not Enter” sign and a “Dead End” sign. Two “Road Closed” signs came from the City of Prairie Village, KS, while Angela Carmona uploaded the third, rather dramatic one to Pinterest. Also via Pinterest, I’m grateful to Todd Gordon and Kevin Barnett for the two “Road Ends” signs. Many thanks to all!

The Future we Want, and How to Get There

By Jan S. Gephardt

The quote-image below has been a consistent favorite (among my most-clicked-on) since I first published it in January 2018. For a science fiction writer, “the future is something we create” has a double meaning, of course (I’ll get back to that in a bit). But if we’re creating our future through our collective choices and actions, what kind of future are we making? Consider the view from where you stand today. Is it truly the future we want?

This image has been a multi-click favorite of my readers since January 2018. (See credits below).

Wait! Doesn’t COVID prove we’re not in control? That we’re at the mercy of random events? Certainly, out-of-the-blue events lurch into our lives. It’s inevitable. Everyone’s future comes packed with forces and events beyond our control.

Throughout time (and probably space, too), unexpected adversity has popped up to complicate things. We’re not responsible for what happens to us or how we feel about it. But we are responsible for what we do in reaction. Therein lies the test of our character.

Our reactions to adversity define the quality of our character. (See credits below).

The Future we Want for Ourselves

It helps to have a clear vision of what you want. As most dancers, martial artists, and other athletes will agree, if you envision doing something – and how you will do it – it helps you perform difficult plays or moves.

But when we apply that principle to life, we need to be careful what we wish for. I’ve known people who envisioned success in the form of tangible items. In my experience, that rarely ends well. You can envision driving a luxurious car or living in a gorgeous house, but how will that help you get there? As a result of that vision, will you do anything to get money?

My sister did an excellent job of explaining a better way to follow a guiding vision in the last two posts. Here are links to her How Did I Get Here? and What do You Want to be When You Grow Up? In her case, the guiding vision was “I want to work in the arts!” and she gave great illustrations of how that worked for her. I don’t need to cover that ground again.

It took a while to find this quote properly attributed to its originator. (See credits below).

The Future we Want for Our World

Today, I’m more concerned with our collective view of the future. It’s a question that has popped up in my life, in one form or another, rather persistently in the last few days. Recent polling seems clear: if you asked a random collection of Americans if we’re headed in a good direction they’d say “NO!”

But are we, to paraphrase the common paraphrase of Mahatma Gandhi, being the change we want to see? What needs to change, and what can we do, individually and collectively, to make that change happen? Ideas vary. But if you’re into New Year’s resolutions, how about resolving to think of people who disagree with us not as morons or buffoons, but as generally not that different from us. Maybe with some peculiar ideas, but not horrible people. Where are the points of commonality? Only from a place of connection can people begin to listen to each other.

Heck, if everyone made a New Year’s resolution (and then stuck to it) to only leave comments online that they’d be willing to say to the other person’s face in real life, we’d be well ahead.

Here’s a good way to start “being the change.” (See credits below).

Envisioning The Future We Want Through Science Fiction

I’ve written before on this blog about ways that science fiction and speculative fiction has occasionally shaped public understanding. When authors explore complex or unusual ideas in compelling stories, they make them more relatable. The “Robot” novels of Isaac Asimov offer just one example.

Many of the most famous and influential science fiction novels or movies are thought experiments about how a new idea or trend or invention might change things if taken to a certain extrapolated level. Often, as in The Handmaid’s Tale, things are taken to an extreme that makes the point hard to overlook.

Unfortunately, all too often the impulse to explore an idea in an extreme version distorts things. The author must downplay or ignore safeguards in the real world, many times without much (or any) explanation of why that safeguard failed in their story’s universe.

Visionary science fiction books from earlier decades. (See credits below).

The Two Novels That Inspired this Post

I normally have several books going at once, but rarely two novels at the same time. More often it’s one novel or anthology (for both pleasure and to keep up with the field) at a time. There usually are at least two nonfiction books for research on different topics. And there also is normally at least one book on the craft of writing.

However, this time (for complex reasons) I’m reading two different science fiction novels in parallel. I’ve only just begun them, so I can’t in fairness say anything yet about my sense of the stories. One is the military sf novel Ninefox Gambit, by Yoon Ha Lee. The other is more “general sf”: The Sol Majestic, by Ferrett Steinmetz.

Neither is a newly-published book. Ninefox Gambit is Book One of a trilogy. It’s set in a larger universe of stories that range from novels to short fiction to games, and more. As far as I can tell, The Sol Majestic is a standalone. Both were published by established publishers. But wow! Are they ever different.

Jan started these novels at roughly the same time. The comparison inspired this post. (See credits below).

Worldview and Approach

Neither universe seems like a very good place to live, but the tone of each world is quite different. We’ll see where they go from here, but the two setups lead me to believe they’ll open out into very different experiences.

My point in mentioning them is to say that opening oneself to new views and ideas can change how we look at the world we live in now. The stories we choose to consume shape our worldview in ways that range from subtle to profound. When we read wildly different books, set in wildly different places and worldviews, we grow more mentally flexible.

The opposite is also true, however. If we only ever tell ourselves one kind of story, over and over and over, it distorts us. What kind of stories should we not get too comfortable with? I’d suggest that too total a diet of conspiracy theories, myths about the Lost Cause, or even science fiction stories that are always predicated on “we destroyed Earth, so we have to find someplace new” might become a problem.

Does it help us create the future we want? That’s a question we probably should ask, especially if we get really, thoroughly dialed-in on any particular worldview or philosophy, to the exclusion of everything else.

What you read and what you discuss really does make a difference. (See credits below).

IMAGE CREDITS:

I’m sorry to say that QuotesHunter (my original source) doesn’t seem to be around anymore, but you can still find the header image on my Artdog Adventures post “Creating Well.” I found the words for the quote from John W. Holt, Jr. on Quote Master, but the quote-image format wasn’t right for this blog. So I made my own, using a stormy background by plus69 on 123rf.

Many, many thanks to Quotespedia, for the often-unattributed Sean Patrick Flanery quote and the nice image to go with it. We also want to thank “Sheila Pennies of Time” on Pinterest for the “random act of kindness” quote-image with the quote by the mysterious Martin Kornfeld (I can find his quote many places, but nothing about the man himself). I can’t find a source beyond that Pinterest page. I first posted it as an “Artdog Quote of the Week” in 2017. For this post, I have adjusted the format to take up less vertical space without losing any of the picture.

I took the photo of my three copies of the Isaac Asimov “Robot” books (The cover art for The Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun are both by Stephen Youll. Cover design for The Robots of Dawn is by Kiyoshi Kanai.) The cover image for The Handmaid’s Tale is courtesy of Bookshop. We’re grateful for the cover images for Ninefox Gambit and The Sol Majestic, both from Goodreads. And finally, Quotefancy came through for us with the George Johnson quote about changes to our brains (check out his appearance on The Colbert Report). Many thanks to all!