{"id":73,"date":"2026-09-30T02:38:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T06:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dreamlogiclabs.org\/?p=73"},"modified":"2026-09-30T18:53:31","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T22:53:31","slug":"a-new-way-to-talk-about-equity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dreamlogiclabs.org\/?p=73","title":{"rendered":"A New Way to Talk About Equity"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

We need to stop making trauma compete in the Olympics.<\/p>\n

This thought hits me whenever I wade into the fraught, exhausting debates about equity. The concept gets so much flack, not because it\u2019s inherently flawed, but because we are all, to some degree, traumatized by the very systems we were born into. We\u2019ve all been handed a unique set of rules\u200a\u2014\u200aor no rules at all\u200a\u2014\u200aand told to play the same game.<\/p>\n

In these discussions, we often fall into the trap of comparing wounds. \u201cYou think that\u2019s<\/em> bad? I had it worse\u2026\u201d It\u2019s a defensive, painful scramble to have our suffering acknowledged. But this misses the entire point. Suffering isn\u2019t a monolith; it\u2019s a spectrum that impacts every single person differently.<\/p>\n

A scar that is a minor inconvenience for one person can be a debilitating injury for another. This doesn\u2019t indicate weakness. It indicates humanity.<\/p>\n

The \u201cGlass Cannon\u201d in Real\u00a0Life<\/h4>\n

For anyone who has ever picked up a controller, there\u2019s a perfect archetype for this: the Glass Cannon<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

In gaming, a Glass Cannon is a character who possesses immense offensive power\u200a\u2014\u200acapable of dealing devastating damage\u200a\u2014\u200abut has very little defensive capability or health. They are incredibly strong, but they cannot take many hits. Their strength does not lie in their endurance.<\/p>\n

We all know people who are Glass Cannons. The brilliantly creative friend who shatters under criticism. The deeply empathetic individual who absorbs the world\u2019s pain until they are paralyzed by it. They are not weak. They are powerful in their own way, but they were simply not built with the same constitution to withstand the particular hits life throws at them.<\/p>\n

Their resilience manifests differently. And that\u2019s okay.<\/p>\n

Expanding Our Idea of Who Deserves\u00a0Help<\/h4>\n

When we understand that trauma is not a competition but a varied and complex landscape, we can start to have a more honest conversation about support.<\/p>\n

Most of us can intuitively agree that a child who grew up in the foster system, without the stability of a permanent family, deserves more of our collective resources\u200a\u2014\u200aour tax dollars, our social programs, our attention\u200a\u2014\u200athan a child whose parents provided a safe, loving, and stable home.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t a controversial statement. It\u2019s an acknowledgement of a foundational deficit.<\/p>\n

But what we often fail to see are the other, less visible orphans. What about the child with torturous parents who controlled every aspect of their life, who provided material comfort but strangled their spirit? The child who had a roof over their head but lived in a psychological warzone?<\/p>\n

Their suffering is different, but it is no less real. The scars are just on the inside. They, too, deserve our help. They are also starting the race miles behind the starting line, just with different weights chained to their ankles.<\/p>\n

The beautiful, radical truth is this: there is enough money and resources to help them all.<\/strong> The problem isn\u2019t scarcity; it\u2019s distribution. The wealth disparity in our country is so vast, so ludicrous, it\u2019s frankly laughable. We are fighting over crumbs while entire banquets are hoarded in plain sight.<\/p>\n

The Joker\u2019s Lesson: A Distorted System Breeds Distorted Heroes<\/h4>\n

This brings me to the Joker.<\/p>\n

Nefarious characters like the Joker resonate not because we agree with their methods, but because we understand their origin. They are the logical, if monstrous, endpoint of a distorted system. They are the ones who looked at the rigged game, realized the rules were written for someone else\u2019s benefit, and decided to flip the table entirely.<\/p>\n

They play into their devilish desires, projecting a distorted vision that perfectly mirrors our own society\u2019s distorted idea of \u201csuccess\u201d and \u201cmerit.\u201d They are the living, breathing consequence of a world that praises winners and punishes losers without ever asking how the teams were chosen.<\/p>\n

The Power of a Wider\u00a0Lens<\/h4>\n

So where do we go from here?<\/p>\n

It starts with a simple but profound shift: understanding that everyone\u2019s behavior is a product of their experiences and genetics. We see the world through our own personal lens, and when we see someone make a \u201cbig mistake,\u201d we\u2019re usually only seeing the final act of a long, complex play.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t to justify harmful actions, but to understand them. There is almost always more to the story. The parent who was controlling may have been controlled themselves. The bully may have been broken down long before they started breaking others.<\/p>\n

When we stop ranking trauma and start recognizing its many forms, we can build an equity that is truly equitable. One that doesn\u2019t ask, \u201cWho suffered more?\u201d but instead asks, \u201cWhat do you need to heal, to grow, and to finally play the game on a field that is, if not level, at least not tilted at a 90-degree angle?\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s about building a world where the Glass Cannons are protected, the orphans of all kinds are nurtured, and no one is driven so far into the margins that the only choice left is to burn the whole thing down.<\/p>\n\n\n

Originally published on Medium. It lives here now \u2014 new essays land in the Journal<\/a> first.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We need to stop making trauma compete in the Olympics. This thought hits me whenever I wade into the fraught, exhausting debates about equity. The concept gets so much flack, not because it\u2019s inherently flawed, but because we are all, to some degree, traumatized by the very systems we were born into. We\u2019ve all been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journal"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamlogiclabs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamlogiclabs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamlogiclabs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamlogiclabs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamlogiclabs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=73"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dreamlogiclabs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":167,"href":"https:\/\/dreamlogiclabs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73\/revisions\/167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamlogiclabs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamlogiclabs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamlogiclabs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}