Who deserves it?

As a researcher and an intellectual I'm always looking for intersections, the connections between seemingly disparate events. As I scrolled through my Twitter feed and Facebook threads, three distinct conversations emerged: The Nina Simone biopic, the Republican primary, and the Flint, Michigan water poisoning. Seemingly disconnected events; yet, all eliciting deep emotional responses.

The more I read, the more I took note of my initial, visceral, emotional responses to each topic. As I pondered, the word deservedness came to mind. Who deserves it? When I use the word deservedness I am referring to someone who has rightly earned, be it positive or negative, their outcome.

Given this context for deservedness, how are these three issues related? To his followers, the Republican frontrunner has made a cohesive argument that they deserve a better life than they currently have. Within his argument is the undercurrent that those other people have misappropriated something he and his followers have earned. The argument further implies those other people don't deserve the life they have, they didn’t earn it.

In the case of the water poisoning in Flint there was a cost-benefit analysis where the fiscal benefit was weighed against public safety.  The decision was made that the opportunity for fiscal reward outweighed the risk of poisoning the water supply. The unspoken argument was financial savings were worth more than the safety of the people who lived in that community. As the argument over how the problem should be fixed continues, the question remains, do the people of Flint deserve clean water? Have they done something to earn it?

Then there’s Zoe Saldana playing Nina Simone. On one side there are those who argue she has earned the right to play the part based on her stellar acting skills and box office draw. There are others who argue she does not deserve the part because she is the wrong color and someone else deserves it more. At the core are two sides to the same coin where one side feels their argument of deservedness is better than the other.

The question of deservedness is nuanced. It requires one to examine the beliefs that fuel situations. Sustainable change is dependent upon deeply understanding our own beliefs and acknowledging others may have antithetical views. How do we gain better understanding of our beliefs in order to drive sustainable change? As people we like quick easy answers, we see inequity from our perspective and we want to fix it…from our perspective. We are in a perilous time, there are no easy answers, only hard questions. I am of the belief that now is the time to do the hard work, our children’s children deserve it.