Michael from the Mailroom……………………………………………………………………………………………..…8 Rules Don ’t Apply: Stairs and the Myth of Meritocracy

Rules Don ’t Apply: Stairs and the Myth of Meritocracy Inspired by “ stair ”

When you look at landmarks and buildings, and you see the stairs, do you ever wonder what’ s missing? Is there anything missing at all? What could possibly be missing from the picturesque view of the Supreme Court? The Lincoln Memorial? Kuruvungna (formerly Janss) Steps at UCLA? The Great Wall of China? These works of art have aesthetic value but are first and foremost a practical device: stairs are meant to connect two levels of different heights.

Stairs are seemingly made to connect. They ’ re for everyone! Allegedly.

But for whom is this connection actually a connection? Stairs, while a seeming minor obstacle to scale hills or reach statues, at the end of the day, is a marker of levels. It is a marker of hierarchy. It is a marker of who can use it and who cannot. For people with disabilities (especially physical or mobility disabilities), stairs are often not as much a marker of connection but a marker of, at best, inconvenience, but mostly inaccessibility and separation. Othering. For some, there might as well be a wall.

Is there a way someone with a physical disability could make it up stairs? Yes, technically, whether it be someone literally carrying them up, or them working significantly harder than able- bodied people to push past the pain or the ways their bodies cannot move. Are many places “ wheelchair accessible ” on a technicality? Yes. But at what cost?

Take UCLA for example. To the best of my knowledge, if someone in a wheelchair wants to get to the top of Kuruvungna Steps, the only option available to them besides getting into a car and parking at a different parking lot is to go all the way to the business school (Anderson) and take an elevator there (that was only installed within the last couple years, I may add!). There are options to go through the convoluted Chutes and Ladders situation that connects Bruin Walk and Powell Library, but on a realistic note (as well as a humanizing one) how fair or equitable is that commute? Students (and people in general) are busy, and while I have not found it the most enjoyable, each time I have had to sprint from my dorm, the parking lot, or a class to another obligation of mine, sprinting up and down stairs expedited the process– it didn ’t hinder it. Was I out of breath and unable to pretend to be hot and mysterious as I panted my way through the door of my class? Absolutely. But I wasn ’t required to take some convoluted path that made me even later than I was going to be in the first place.

In thinking about this, I tried to figure out some novel metaphor- what the equivalent of the Glass Ceiling (or Bamboo Ceiling) was for people with disabilities. What was the metaphorical ceiling made out of? And then I realized that I didn ’t need to coin some new term. Stairs were it. The “Ceiling ” is not a ceiling whatsoever. It’ s literally stairs.

When women (or any other marginalized groups) are dealing with invisible ceilings that hinder their growth, they are made to think that they ’ re doing something wrong. Maybe they ’ re not working hard enough. Maybe they ’ re not competent or qualified. But recognition of the Glass Ceiling is recognition of the institutional (or infrastructural) barriers that make it so women and

members of marginalized groups can ’t transcend to the top. Questioning their perception of their own value is what happens when a society is marketed to be a meritocracy. If society is truly a meritocracy– a society that only looks at everyone ’ s merit– it only follows that people who don ’t get the best jobs (or other things) don ’t have the qualities that the person who did get the job does. But– and I can only truly speak for the U.S. – a meritocracy, while it is what some people strive for, is a myth. Furthermore, what defines “ merit”? According to Google, merit is “the quality of being particularly good or worthy. ” What is “ good”? What is “ worthy ”?

Te ways that “ merit” can be defined often reveals certain biases that different people have. While some traits such as patience, empathy, and logic are pretty uncontroversial in terms of encompassing “ merit” , other definitions of merit may come to mind. A certain gender. A certain sexuality. A certain race, ethnicity, or nationality. A certain physical capability.

In talks about getting ahead and excelling in whatever field someone finds themself in, people will say, “Nothing is impossible ” , or “If you wanted to, you would. ” While I believe there is truth in these statements, it requires contextualization. Yes, anyone can do anything, but the paths to those achievements are not created equally. Even if they were, everyone ’ s toolkits vary so widely that blanket statements like these come off as more condescending than encouraging.

College, for example, is advertised as an academic (and sometimes holistic) endeavor; assessing people on their intellect and pre- collegiate achievements. But if the 2019 college admissions bribery scandal, among other generally accepted truths regarding legacies and how much money and social status actually does influence admissions, means anything, it’ s that the path is advertised to be the same: get good grades, be a good student, and do a lot of extracurriculars. However, students ’ toolkits (or perhaps, more appropriately, wallets and socioeconomic privileges) are far from equal.

I am not suggesting that we live in a society where we control everything- where everyone is equal in every facet of their lives. That’ s utterly absurd. But empathy and wider recognition of the ways that things advertised as accessible are actually significantly more inaccessible to some leads to increased understanding and generally less contention. Instead of getting angry that somebody didn ’t make it up the stairs, period, recognizing that said person is in a wheelchair invalidates any potential anger that someone could have without the context. Instead of getting pissed off that somebody didn ’t pay a Venmo request immediately, recognizing that they may not have the same economic disposition as you or that today, rent was due and they ’ll need to wait until next paycheck, is imperative to not blow up over something that, contextualized, is pretty reasonable.

In conjunction with wider recognition of people ’ s individual situations should be the removal of implicit or unspoken criteria for admission or entry into different spaces. If there is a standard, economic or not, let it be known. Was someone taken out of the running because they are of a certain physical (in)capability? Sexual orientation? Gender? Race? Nationality? If verbalizing that standard sounds unjustifiable, or if making the standard public feels like a bad PR move, maybe it’ s time for some reflection. Furthermore, if it’ s advertised that the “ rules apply to everybody ” , I have to ask– how consistently are those rules enforced? Ruling with an iron fist is

not my suggestion, but if standards are enforced on an inconsistent or contradictory basis, how justified are they to begin with?

Personally, I believe that not everything needs to be codified in some rulebook or document to be taken seriously, and there are definitely exceptions that I am not thinking of, but in matters like voting, college admissions, job interviews, or even assessing people on a individual or group basis, recognition of personal and institutional biases and how those biases influence decision making processes is crucial.

I will also say that learning to not take things personally is also an incredibly valuable skill, and not entirely outside the realm of this discussion. However, it’ s undeniable that in some circumstances, as impersonal as someone may take the decision, the decision has real ramifications in their very personal life. Not taking a job rejection personally may be good for your mental health and separating your worth as a person from your worth as a worker, but if the reason for the rejection is some unspoken standard advertised under the ambiguous moniker of “ merit” , it is completely reasonable to feel aggrieved, or even cheated. More grim is what these inconsistencies mean within the context of the justice system. Encounters with the law are, ostensibly, reflections of the crime, but why is it that Ethan Crumbley, the student that killed 4 students and injured 8 more at Oxford High School, was detained? Detained. Alive. But Grand Rapids resident Patrick Lyoya lost his life over a traffic stop?

Deconstruction of biases and institutional injustices is one of the many steps necessary to improving society as a whole. These biases will only be revealed once we look at the myriad of stories and perspectives that have not been listened to or recognized. To me, sometimes it feels like we give more deference to the United States Constitution than the stories and beliefs of the people standing right in front of us. Those people who give more deference to a document written in 1787 have the same logic as the people who think that the Bible, verbatim, should have any bearing on what people, living more than 3000 years after the events in the book [supposedly] happened, do. Great! We have documents written by people who do not have nearly as much knowledge or perspective as we have in the present day! And we still, somehow, give them more credibility and authority because… Why?

I’ m not suggesting that there aren ’t good ideas in the Bible, the United States Constitution, or any other piece of text written on yellowing parchment or animal hide. What I am saying, though, is that deifying those words or refusing to recognize their issues only obstructs any sort of progress or recognition of truth.

Yes, the founders of the United States as we know it said that “All men were created equal” , and some people would argue that they created a system of government that honored that sentiment. But when you recognize that these were the same people who committed mass genocide against the people who lived here originally, and built an entire economy based on slavery, among other egregious violations of human rights, it becomes less about the statement and what they released in “ official correspondences ” , and more about how it actually manifested.

Intention is great, but at the end of the day, how did that intention actually come off? Did the government actually set up infrastructure and institutions that recognized that all men [and women] were created equal? Or did these institutions only cater to white male landowners? These institutions still exist today, but people who are not white, male, and/or straight will be told that they are not working hard enough and that is why they are not succeeding within the framework, or system, of the United States. That could be a valid criticism if the terms and conditions were created with them in mind. But they weren ’t.

While expecting perfection and exact precision in language is a standard that is both unrealistic and unreasonable, it must be noted that marketing is not the only industry that engages in false advertising. Policy making and other enterprises that claim to cater to “ everyone ” need to ask themselves, “What do we mean by “ everyone ”?” and “Who actually is “ everyone ”?” . The first question yields a more precise answer regarding who the target audience is, and the space between the answers to both questions reveals the opportunity to potentially revisit some old beliefs and biases. Pleasing everybody is a nearly impossible task, but the problems of catering to everybody are thwarted when the imprecise and misleading claim of “for everyone ” is avoided entirely.