A Day of Social Justice
By Albert B. Kelly
It wouldn’t be too much to say that February is a month with
enough holidays and observances to keep us busy for a while. February offers
everything from Valentine’s Day and Presidents Day to Black History Month.
While each has is part of the fabric of the month, there is another observance
in February that I hope will become as prominent as the others and I’m speaking
of the United Nation’s “World Day of Social Justice” which was observed on
February 20th.
Started in 2009, the World Day of Social Justice was
instituted as a way to focus global attention on such issues as unemployment,
poverty, inequality and the way these play out whether by culture, race,
ethnicity, or religion. The core principle is for governments to create a
framework for action to promote social justice at all levels. What this looks
like is an equitable distribution of income and greater access to resources
through equality and opportunity for all.
The idea here is that no one should be excluded and left out
on the margins because of their culture, race, ethnicity, religion, or other
differences we might be compelled to use in separating out peoples or groups.
It’s become awfully easy for us here in the United States to point to any
number of countries around the world and condemn them for inequalities,
oppression, or human rights abuses and if you pick out the worst of them, we’ll
always look good by comparison.
But in the context of the World Day of Social Justice each
February, the question for us is this; what are we doing to make our community
a more just and equitable place? And after that, the question comes down to how
each of us is participating (or not) to bring about social justice. I frame it
this way because in order for it to mean anything, it has to be personal and in
order to be personal, it has to be local. We can’t easily bring about change on
the other side of the world, but we can on the other side of town.
When it comes to participation, I think all reasonable
people would agree that we need a more just and equitable society and they
would fully subscribe to those principles but beyond simply agreeing, what does
it look like on the ground in our community? I think starts with the people and
things right in front of us, the people and things we can actually touch and
impact.
As we come toward the end of the winter season, I am in awe
of the nightly group of volunteers we have in our city who make it their
business to show up each shift when Code Blue is in effect to help those who
are homeless in our warming center, including with meals; individuals like Susan
Cavagnaro from Our Lady of Mercy Academy (OLMA) in Newfield providing
sandwiches as well as St Andrews Church and the Salvation Army serving hot
foods.
It would be easy for them to conclude that the homeless are
to blame for their own circumstances and that they are therefore not worth it.
But social justice isn’t about such critical judgements nor does social justice
lend itself to such harsh conclusions. Instead, social justice recognizes that
many things factor into how and why someone is living on the margins, excluded
from the resources and opportunities that make for a self-sustaining and
productive life.
Your contribution to social justice may not be at a code
blue warming center, but perhaps it is helping someone to read, mentoring a
young person, visiting the sick at a nursing home, teaching financial literacy,
or doing something else to make our community a better place.
I recently read a book that referenced the “butterfly
effect”; the idea that a small localized change in a complex system can have
large effects elsewhere. In terms of our local community, it’s the idea that
whatever time you invest; whether in something like Code Blue, working with
children or doing any one of a dozen other things in the name of social justice
can have long-lasting impacts in positive ways we can’t always know.
This February marked the UN World Day of Social Justice and
while we can’t easily bring about change on the other side of the planet, we
can do quite a lot in our own community. Here’s to social justice and those
willing to bring it about.