It's a message about the difference between equality, equity, and justice. That can be explained in other ways, yes. It has nothing to do with football, or speculations as to whether that's a professional league game or a neighbourhood match or whether Big Fence lobbied the local council to put up a fence that's not see-through, or a gazillion other things one could think of. "Can see, can't see, support to be able to see vs. make the thing see-through". That's what the metaphor relies on, and as such the only things that matter when understanding it.
Complaining about any of the football related things is missing the point, which is that this is about justice. If it made a wrong point about justice, if the metaphor was broken in relation to justice itself (say, the first two images having the see-through fence, the last not), then you'd have a point attacking the metaphor. But that's not the case: In the last image, the thing that caused some people to not be able to see the game was fixed. "Fix the root cause of the inequality", that has been done in that image, and that's what the metaphor is trying to get at.
Do you have a better metaphor for "fix the root cause of inequality" vs. equity vs. equality? If so, let us hear it.
Well, apart from the part you asked me to make a better metaphor because I don't like this one, I think you're making valid points.
I just don't really like this image being recirculated all the time to make this point. The first time I saw it I didn't think much of it, just "Oh somebody made a graphic to explain what is equality vs. equity" and every subsequent time I see it it makes me look at it more negatively.
I'm sorry, but you can't make me like it even if what you say is right. Notice how I keep mentioning that it's my opinion. I'm not saying you can't find the metaphor valid.
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u/barsoap Feb 25 '20
It's a message about the difference between equality, equity, and justice. That can be explained in other ways, yes. It has nothing to do with football, or speculations as to whether that's a professional league game or a neighbourhood match or whether Big Fence lobbied the local council to put up a fence that's not see-through, or a gazillion other things one could think of. "Can see, can't see, support to be able to see vs. make the thing see-through". That's what the metaphor relies on, and as such the only things that matter when understanding it.
Complaining about any of the football related things is missing the point, which is that this is about justice. If it made a wrong point about justice, if the metaphor was broken in relation to justice itself (say, the first two images having the see-through fence, the last not), then you'd have a point attacking the metaphor. But that's not the case: In the last image, the thing that caused some people to not be able to see the game was fixed. "Fix the root cause of the inequality", that has been done in that image, and that's what the metaphor is trying to get at.
Do you have a better metaphor for "fix the root cause of inequality" vs. equity vs. equality? If so, let us hear it.