This concept did not emerge on the world scene until the mid-nineteenth century. This was the time of the Industrial Revolution and of other civil rebellions occurring throughout Europe. The focus during this period was on property, capital, and the fair distribution of wealth.
In the middle of the twentieth century the idea started to expand. Gender, nationality, race, and environmental equality were included. The concept also expanded from just a governmental responsibility to create an equal society to include personal responsibility for alleviating the unjust conditions suffered by victims all over the world.
The experts break down the issues that prevent a just society into two parts. The first involves how society treats some individuals based entirely on their own personal bias, misinformation, fear, and prejudice. This is the case when people are treated unequally just because they are of a different race, religion, age, social status, ethnicity, or have mental or physical disabilities.
Unequal government regulations is the second part experts cite. This is when a government, knowingly or not, creates conditions that deny, limit, or make it difficult for certain segments of society to have access to opportunities given to other segments of the same society. This can be voting laws that allow redistricting and require voters to have certain forms of identification. It might be labor laws that limit the rights of workers.
Laws pertaining to the environment that have loopholes allowing industrial waste to pollute rivers and lakes where communities get their drinking water and pollute the air those communities breathe is an example of injustice condoned by local, state, and federal governments. In the United States, people of specific nationalities and races are more likely to be detained by law enforcement.
Experts break down the ways in which society treats certain individuals unequally into direct and indirect. Direct inequality comes about when people deny certain rights and opportunities to some and not to others. If the owner of a public restaurant bars diners from eating at his establishment based on their sexual orientation, that is direct inequality. Segregated schools and public facilities that deny access to certain individuals with the consent of the government is another example.
Indirect inequality is when governments put laws in place that don't directly inhibit the rights of certain individuals, but in reality do just that. Laws that limit mail in voting and require identifying documentation in order to vote are examples of indirect inequality. Purchasing clothes made in sweatshops have the effect of supporting manufacturers who victimize their workers. You are indirectly condoning this conduct by rewarding it with sales.
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