The Fire Has No Name

The fire is burning millions of Americans.

For New Yorkers of the early 1800s, the act of reporting a fire was sometimes scarier than the disaster itself. 

Loosely structured gangs made up the city's volunteer fire department, and they extorted residents. If you didn't pay the fee or you lived in the wrong neighborhood, the gangs would stand back while flames engulfed your building. 

The dynamic sounds crazy by modern standards. New Yorkers now have a unified, reputable NYFD that responds to crises regardless of where they occur or whom they threaten. No firefighter would perseverate over details while people's lives and livelihoods were at stake. 

Yet, when it comes to civil rights, many American policymakers are still choosing which fires to extinguish. 

While the smoke of segregation slowly faded from the South, where African Americans were its primary target, Mexican and Asian Americans experienced similar prejudice in the West.

Women fought for and won the right to pursue their own careers, but so-called old boy's clubs have disintegrated at different rates, varying by industry. Therefore, women's rights activists have needed to win the same battle many times over.

Same-sex couples have maintained a similar tenacity. In some states they spent years lobbying for the right to visit loved ones in a hospital, yet lawmakers required them to invest more years in a struggle for marriage rights. 

Although each of these groups has unique needs and circumstances, they're fighting for common principles. Whenever one achieves a victory, whether it be on the basis of race, gender or sexual orientation, a new logic of equality of born. 

Discrimination still burns millions of Americans. Let's honor the shared sacrifices and principles of civil rights movements by extinguishing the fires, not labeling them.