Responsibility

While I generally avoid making this an issue about ethics, let me be slightly controversial for once, and make it about an issue of ethics.

My argument:

People who grew up with privilege have a duty to help others gain similar basic opportunities.

Let’s unpack that.

Privilege, in this context, I define as having basic living standards. As having food, water, healthcare, and shelter. As having opportunities for education. As having opportunities for employment to the full extent of our capacities.

Super basic, yet unfulfilled by the vast majority of people currently living on this planet.

Even in developed countries as in the USA, healthcare, for example, isn’t a certainty. Anyone who has watched Sicko would understand a little bit of the stress and pressure medical issues can have on people’s lives. Even if you thought you were smart and got insurance, a sudden change in health can leave your life in shambles. That’s unacceptable. The richest country in the world is unwilling to help those most in need.

I grew up with more privileges than I can count.

For sure, my family came from humble beginnings. My parents sometimes had no food to eat when they were young. Having been working since they were single digit aged, they hid from authorities for child labour checks. My mom almost lost her thumb while working as a child and the family didn’t have money to take her to a proper hospital. She still has the scars. My parents worked long and hard for the opportunity to move to Canada. Even then, we were struggling. My dad worked minimum wage jobs to support our whole family. Ultimately, we moved back to Hong Kong after four years because the finances just weren’t working out. Luckily, we lived in a place with inclusive enough economic institutions that we were able to rise with the booming economy. (And somehow managed to escape the 1998 economic crisis.)

I have never known a day of hunger nor poverty. (Which is an amazing feat, considering the situation Hong Kong was in when my parents were young)

Fortunate enough to be a citizen of two countries that provide basic health care, that ensure their citizens get unemployment insurance, that guarantee world class primary and secondary education to even the poorest, that provide at least assistance for basic shelter, I have always been fed, housed, treated, and educated. Yes, I worked hard to get into good schools. I worked hard for those scholarships. But I am fully aware that I was able to work hard because I had an environment where I didn’t have to work as a child to support my family. There were hard times in my family, but I was shielded from the storm by my parents, of which I am eternally grateful. Fortunate enough to have parents who saved every penny for me to have the best possible education, I am here today, having the freedom to explore my interests without much economic consideration.

Fortunate, indeed.

Yet, we should not be leaving this up to fortune.

Why should we leave such basics up to luck? Why, when we know the only way an economy can truly grow in an inclusive and democratic way is to have an educated workforce, are we leaving our social and economic futures to random chance?

Basic living and education standards are not privileges, they are investments. Investments for the collective futures of our communities, countries, and world.

Which brings us back to my premise. Those of us who have had the privilege to grow up with basic living standards are responsible for helping spread those opportunities for those who haven’t been privileged. We cannot forget that if you have had a university education, you are part of less than 1% of the world population. Privilege comes with responsibility. We are responsible. You are responsible.

Think back to two hundred years ago. Women were still the property of men. Women could not vote. People of colour were non-persons. Colonialism was justified. Slavery accepted. The poor died and no one blinked an eye.

What changed? The reason I, a female person of colour born in a colony, am able to type these words, express my thoughts, fly around to almost every country in the world and have a chance to work in almost any job I would desire, is because other people with privilege fought for my opportunities. Universal suffragists gave me political voice. Anti-colonialists gave my birth place independence. Immigration advocates opened international borders for dual citizenship.

How can I not be responsible for the future of others like me?