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Student opinion on social justice and whether its politicized

(Photo courtesy of the copyright alliance organization) The National Association of Social Workers defines social justice as the view that everyone deserves equal economic, political and social rights and opportunities.

Qinglong Diep
Connector Staff

I believe social justice has become increasingly politicized. Social justice issues can be found in every part of the world and in a wide range of subject areas.

Before diving straight into the topic, it is important to define what social justice is and the four main principles.

The National Association of Social Workers defines social justice as the view that everyone deserves equal economic, political and social rights and opportunities. The four principles of social justice are equity, access, participation and rights.

The main reason why so many social justice issues are becoming politicized is that it starts with one or more people saying it matters.

Climate crises have been around for such a long time but have we come to some solutions to it? Probably and probably not depending on what state or country you live in. One person that comes to my mind is Greta Thunberg. I have listened to her TED Talk and it is very influential that she is calling on world leaders to act rather than discussing ways on how to combat the climate crisis that is happening right now. We have all seen forest fires, greenhouse emissions going up, the temperature of Earth going up, parts of Antarctic ice disappearing and so many more of these events due to the climate crisis. How is the climate crisis going to be solved? That lies in world leaders to figure out the answer to that.

Gender pay gap in the United States still exists today. The Pew Research Center states women earned 84% of what men earned, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of median hourly earnings of both full- and part-time workers. The gender pay gap is getting smaller but it could take more years if more drastic actions do not happen . Despite this pay gap in gender, many companies are offering equal pay but more companies across the globe should commit to this. It should not even exist in 2022 but it still does in executive positions where some males make more money than some females.

Joe Biden won the 2020 Presidential election while Donald Trump lost by 74 electoral college votes. Trump claims that the election was stolen from him and that there was voter fraud. All of these claims that Trump made were rejected in court by judges that were mostly appointed by Trump and confirmed. After Trump made these claims, many republican state legislatures across the country changed their election laws even though there was no evidence of voter fraud to support Trump claims. Many of these new election laws have gone into effect. Last year, the Department of Justice sued Georgia and Texas for their new election laws. The House of Representatives have passed two pieces of legislation to combat these voter suppression laws enacted by republican state legislatures but have so far hit a roadblock as Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema refused to change the rules in the Senate to allow voting rights legislation to pass with a simple majority.

Gun violence has been a hot social justice issue for a couple of years and still is. According to Everytown Research, black people are 10 times more likely to be murdered by a gun than white American people. Recently Amir Locke, a young Black man, was shot to death by a white man, according to a report by The Guardian. There have been attempts to revise gun control legislation such as changing the length of background checks and having universal background checks.  Both have passed the House of Representatives but the Senate has yet to pass both of these bills. Republicans in Congress are still opposed to universal background checks as some allegedly claim that they will not work at all. A similar effort was made in 2013 by Senator Manchin and Senator Toomey but failed to get the 60 votes to pass it as required by the Senate rule.

While there are many social justice issues that exist today, they all start because of several people saying that this issue matters to ensure that equality in all aspects of life exist for the better good and not the other way around.

Who knows what will happen in the future to solve the many social justice issues that have existed for years.

 

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