Stigma (Malik Speaking)
		Comment				MAIN PATH: Dee
				Fred	Vera	Malik	Dee

I want to tie my concern about stigma in with some things that I have stressed before:

• I have mentioned the difference between substantive and legal equality. I want to expand substantive equality to include what some writers call "social equality." Social equality requires that people be regarded by both government and private individuals with equal respect as human beings. If we are socially equal, we regard each other as equally valuable persons and we regard our interests as equally valuable. If we carry this idea out in practice, it means that the interest of African Americans in education is just as important as the interest of whites in education. The interest of African Americans in safe neighborhoods is just as important as the interest of whites in safe neighborhoods, and so on. It seems clear to me that white America, by and large, does not view things this way. But I think that this violates a basic right to be treated with equal respect by others.

• In the United States there has always been great resistance to social equality between blacks and whites. The dominant attitude among whites has been that blacks are socially inferior, less worthy of respect, and certainly not entitled to have their interests valued at the same level as those of whites.

• The great obstacle to social equality is the idea that some groups of people are inferior by nature and that this inferiority is marked by skin color, sex, or some other feature. This idea is what I'm calling stigma. We can tie stigma back to hate speech because hate speech is essential to the way we construct this idea of inferiority.

The goal of our social policies ought to be to achieve social equality by eradicating stigma throughout American culture.

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