My earliest encounter with Social Justice resides in my memories of my grandfather. At 10 years old, I would accompany him on his grass cutting routes.  My world consisted of two square miles of neighborhoods cluttered with houses and cars lining dirty gravel-top roads.  The neighborhoods where he cut grass had houses that were large and spacious.  Bright, shiny cars were parked in driveways or garages and the streets were clean and paved. These neighborhoods were only twenty minutes away, yet it felt like I had entered a whole new world, like I was going on an epic adventure.

Another miraculous change I would witness was the transformation of my grandfather. A somber, quiet, and reserved man became jubilant, talkative, and outgoing. It was through him that I learned my “yes suh, and no suh, yes missus and no missus.”

I sensed during those outings that my grandfather’s attitude towards those white people went deeper than an employee’s respect. There was something different about white people that required my grandpa to give more of himself, or so he thought. And so I grew up not really knowing what that thing was, yet I imitated my grandfather’s behavior. The world helped to re-enforce my actions as well.

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I started to develop an unconscious shame for who I was. I started fantasizing about being white. I detested the neighborhood I grew up in, the music I listened to, and the food I grew up on. I was angry at my own skin. I did everything I could to become accepted in white society. I consciously believed that if I spoke with bass in my voice, acted more conforming and looked less intimidating I would be accepted into that secret society where the world had showed me that life, liberty, and the pursuit of justice actually existed. There was no social justice for my grandpa so how could there be any for me?

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Equality and equity are the love children of social justice because they administer to the education and health of a community. That is how cultural identity and self-identity begins. By incorporating social justice into society we distribute justice adequately, fairly and equitably producing people that can see themselves not as inferior but as equal– achieving life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that was never hidden in a false society.