Equality In The Chicano Movement

In movements today and in circles and discussions around social justice today we like to entertain the idea of liberation; whether collective or individual, the endgame is liberation for all. Although the goal has seemingly changed in today’s movements – from achieving equality and reform to all-out liberation – the methods to achieving this new goal have not necessarily changed. They have not changed because the idea remains that it may be possibly to gain liberation through equality. Equality is a more tangible goal for most movements; it’s easier to demand, it’s easier to imagine and describe. Liberation, not so much. Most might consider that equality has a reasonable timeline where liberation will be a very long process that involves the deconstruction and the decolonization of centuries of oppression. So, in the meantime while waiting for liberation, maybe we should fight for equality as it will put us that much closer to liberation.
It is, of course, important to consider that even though we may have been taught that the goal of the movement of our elders, such as the Civil Rights Movement, the Chicano Movement, the Feminist’s Movement, etc. was all in the name of equality, that is not always the most accurate assessment as many of the movements that were

happening either within the scope of these movements or at least congruently, were aiming, maybe more hopelessly, for liberation such as the Algerian movement, the Black Power Movement, the Black Liberation Movement, and so on. We here less about these movements perhaps because it is easier to measure “progress” in equality than in liberation. Nevertheless, we seek to find our liberation through the tools of equality.
Equality is defined as “the state of being equal, especially in status, rights, and opportunities” (Merriam-Webster).

The way we think about equality is usually in reference to the idea of giving every group the exact same rights and privileges. Liberation is defined as the “freedom from limits on thought or behavior.” (Merriam-Webster). When we talk about liberation we think about a society where no person suffers from the oppression imposed by another person, group, government, religion, political ideology, law, etc. We think of liberation as a limitless freedom that is accessible for every single person, despite any social, economic, physical, biological, sexual, ideological or behavioral

difference.
Liberation and equality are inherently different ideas. They are two different goals, yet we utilize the same methods to reach them both. We have somehow taken these definitions and decided that the pathway to a life free from limitations is by creating a system of equal opportunities, status and rights. But, we seem to have not assessed how we can provide access to all of the same rights and opportunities to people without limitations and what that actually looks like. The idea of liberation is one that entices many people because it tells of a world with no systematic oppression, institutionalized racism, no microaggressions, no fetishization, and no more struggle in the name of one’s identity.
It may be important to consider the idea of social construction in regards to identity when referencing liberation versus equality. While all identities have real life implications and go much deeper than just being summed up as a construction of society, it is important to note that most identities are indeed assigned categories, rather that be through self-assignment or imposition. Social identities are all dependent on boundaries that are fluid, subjective, and constantly shifting (Cornell and Hartmann 1988). For this reason, it makes it harder to conjoin the ideas of liberation and equality. Liberation seems to be based on an idea where identities do not pose limitations on accessibility, or opportunity. However, equality is literally based in the premises of social identities. It is based on the idea that people with different, and even “conflicting” identities will still have the same amount of access to right and privileges. It is much harder to do away with the concept of identity in regards to equality since most people’s lived experiences are directly correlated to their perceived or self-assigned identities, complicating the process of liberation through equality.
Considering the way in which we ground liberation, it is not a reality that can be achieved through the process of equality. The way we interact with these two terms has inavertedly created put them into a dichotomy in which we have to choose one or the other. “Freedom is a state not limited to a particular culture, race or people, and therefore, the principles upon which a struggle for human rights is based must be all inclusive, must apply equally for all people” (BAE). Essentially, a movement must not be based on the idea of equality, but liberation. This paper will explore the works of Frantz Fanon, Edward Said, Josh Bloom and Dean Martin in exploring the ways in which equality will not equate to liberation.
The first of which is that equality in and of itself inherently creates a standard of achievement. Fighting for equality has more often than not been, in essence, fighting for assimilation, where the most privileged group – wealthy, white, cis, straight men – have been set as the status quo, and people that do not fall into that group have been fighting to be included into their standard. The problem with this idea is that these standards are usually created by the people who also hold them who set themselves at the top of, gave themselves all the privileges and then denied them to anyone who fell out of below their standard. Equality is essentially the effort to reach that standard, or at the very least, give everyone an equal opportunity to reach it. It creates the idea that “freedom…is relative” (BAE). Whereas liberation falls more in line with the idea of completely shattering the standard and creating a society where there is none.
Frantz Fanon talks extensively about colonization, and the way in which he describes he also asserts, in lament terms, the reasons why equality will not aid a colonized people. The idea centers around the same idea of the standard being set to the identities of those who are privileged in order to keep them that way. “In the colonial context the settler only ends his work of breaking in the native when the latter admits loudly and intelligibly the supremacy of the white man’s values” (Fanon). The idea of achieving a standard through equality is essentially an attempt to assimilate the “others” into white supremacy and the society it seeks to uphold.