Editorials

The Correct Way to Empower People

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11 October 2014

By Bronwen

There’s no denying that there have been countless acts of discrimination through history. White people have discriminated black people. Straight people have shunned homosexuality. Atheists are currently disapproved of maybe the most excessively (even though many people won’t have this). Over history, humans have discriminated against Jews, Muslims, Christians, Atheists, Hindus, Kurds, blacks, whites, Latinas, Asians, emos, Goths, rich people, poor people, men, women, fat, skinny; the list goes on.

But when enough support is given, society will begin to change and accept things. The Suffragettes. The Equal Pay Act. 2000 years ago, we’d be feeding Christians to lions. Today, we accept them as part of our culture. In 1930’s America, you could legally murder a black person. Today, most of us do not see colour. 30 years ago, we’d laugh at the fat kid. Today, many of us- not all- aren’t bothered by the amount of calories someone eats. This is because of empowerment.

Empowerment means to make a person or group more confident and give them a power to make them equal to other people or groups in the world. It does NOT mean bringing the opposition down.
That’s right, Nikki Minaj. Don’t “f*ck the skinny b*tches”. Meghan Trainor- how can you tell people not to worry about their size and then describe skinny people as “silicone Barbie dolls”? For years it has been frowned upon to be fat, but the way round it is not to start to make it shameful to be skinny. Fat isn’t beautiful. Skinny isn’t beautiful. Healthy is beautiful and if someone has a problem with your healthy size, don’t bring them down, shoot yourself up.

Bringing someone down to make you both equal will never be successful. It causes resentment between the two groups. So when all of the self-righteous people on the Internet slate all “straight white boys”, they’re not empowering other races or nationalities, homosexuals or women. They’re only creating resentment. And resentment is the reason that there are bombs going off every day.
A group will never get respect if their tactic for equality is to hate or shame. Show the world how good you and your group are. Empower yourselves.

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