It's that time of year again: Turkeys get pardoned or, more frequently, eaten. Malls get raided. Football gets ignored. Meanwhile, life goes on. And while it is easy to be cynical and disheartened by global news in light of so much hostility and inhumanity, for those of us living in the United States, this is also a time for giving thanks.
It is in that spirit that I have gathered a list of some of my favorite pieces of U.S. news on overcoming discrimination over the past couple of months:
- On April 9, 2012 -- Equal Pay Day -- we could celebrate that the pay gap between Latina and black women and men had been reduced slightly compared to the year before. The over-all pay gap between men and women stayed more or less then same. (Of course, in June 2012, Senate Republicans blocked a bill that would have created better remedies for workplace discrimination through unequal pay by banning companies from retaliating against workers who ask about pay disparities, and by permitting punitive damages where discrimination is proven. But for now, let's be thankful that the race/gender pay gap is diminishing).
You may have noticed that none of this news is unpolluted. For every thanks we give, there is another mountain to move.
I am, however, an eternal optimist. Perhaps the best news of all is that when we look at gender and race discrimination in the United States over the past four or five decades, while it is still prominent and rife, it is gradually becoming less and less acceptable in law and in practice.
This year, for Thanksgiving, I celebrated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It's been almost half a century since Congress codified the fact that we are all equal, at least on paper. I trust it won't take us another 50 to really make it a reality.