Human Rights or Rich, White, Christian Male Rights?

Today we are still engaging in the debate started in the late 18th century. We continue to struggle to define universally the “rights” guaranteed to all human beings. As seen in the Declaration of Independence (1776) and the French’s Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen (1789), the rights guaranteed to man are just that - rights given to specific men, not to everyone.^{1 2} The reason for this is the fact that those who already have the rights do not want to allow others to enjoy the same freedoms as they do. Somewhere along the line, certain individuals perceived themselves better than others and sought to subjugate them. Some, claiming divine right, took advantage of a religious population to catapult themselves into superiority without actually having any superior qualities. Religion, in my deepest belief, should have no bearing on idea of equal rights for all. The concept of one person deserving more rights than another is nothing more than the “haves”’ unwillingness to hand over power stolen from a society thousands of years ago. Unless those in control unexpectedly agree to relinquish this power, we will continue to fight the same battles of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. When will we as a society decide that fair is fair and equal is equal for ALL, not just some? Have we been brainwashed by those in power to perceive ourselves less than they? They are in power because they took it, and we’ve sat back and accepted our fate as inferiors. We’ve stood by for centuries as our fellow humans have been ostracized for being anything but straight, rich, male, and Christian. The sickening hypocrisy of the latter is, for a religion so obsessed with persecuting homosexuality, their own priests have a problem keeping their hands off of little boys. Furthermore, instead of calling foul, the Church decides that they should simply cover it up because their priests are somehow above the laws which apply to everyone else. Who gave them these privileges? If you say God, then whose God? Is it God’s will for individuals to enslave entire races of people and kill thousands in the name of their definition of God? Did God intend to create a world where some people have all and many have none? No, but society, religion, government, and social norms did. So once again, until we as a society decide that right is right and equal is equal for all, we are destined to be a slave population to those who’ve taken the “right” to tell us what we believe, who deserves, and who does not. A powerful and relevant quote on the topic comes from Olaudah Equiano in the previous module, where he states:

When you make men slaves you deprive them of half their virtue, you set them in your own conduct an example of fraud, rapine, and cruelty, and compel them to live with you in a state of war; and yet you complain that they are not honest or faithful! You stupify them with stripes, and think it necessary to keep them in a state of ignorance; and yet you assert that they are incapable of learning; that their minds are such a barren soil or moor, that culture would be lost on them; and that they come from a climate, where nature, though prodigal of her bounties in a degree unknown to yourselves, has left man alone scant and unfinished, and incapable of enjoying the treasures she has poured out for him!³

This is true even today. Those of us not in the top tier of society will always be slaves as long as we allow the top tier of society to make the rules. They will never relinquish the power they stole from the masses long ago unless We the People decide that those “self-evident” truths our forefathers wrote about actually apply to all human kind and not just a select group within society. Until then, I’ll see you in shackles.

Full disclosure:  I am a white male, raised in an upper-middle class household to be Christian and Republican. I have since been a Democratic political operative and have seen hypocrisy on both sides of the aisle; I no longer belong to any party. I also no longer call myself a Christian, as I cannot associate myself with any religion that says they stand for acceptance, all the while judging anyone not like them. I believe in the “Golden Rule” - treat others as you would like to be treated. If we all lived by this creed, society would be a better place for it. Unfortunately, some believe that they have the right to treat everyone like slaves and expect to be treated like gods in return.

         1. Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen (August 26, 1789), in The French Revolution and Human Rights: A Brief Documentary History, ed. Lynn Hunt (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1996), 77-79.

         2. Declaration of Independence (July 4, 1776), http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html (accessed February 9, 2012).

         3. Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, (1789), in The Intersting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano: Written by Himself with Related Documents, ed. Robert J. Allison (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2007), 113.