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neighborhood lacking jobs and decent schools the distribution of natural assets and abilities, 5
but filled with police officers who shoot first his intelligence and strength and the like.” As
and ask questions later. Maybe he’s now Rawls put it, “If a man knew that he was wealthy,
subjected to the very forms of bigotry, terror and he might find it rational to advance the principle section two
structural racism that he once gleefully inflicted that various taxes for welfare measures be
on others. counted unjust; if he knew he was poor, he /
This kind of thought experiment is obviously would most likely propose the contrary
dangerous, since it can tempt us to imagine that principle.” If denied basic information about
people have somehow earned miserable fates one’s circumstances, Rawls predicted that
and deserve to suffer. But considering future important social goods, such as rights and Michelle Alexander
lives can also be productive, challenging us to liberties, power and opportunities, income and
imagine that what we do or say in this life wealth, and conditions for self-respect would be
matters and might eventually catch up with us. “distributed equally unless an unequal
Would we fail to respond with care and distribution of any or all of these values is to
compassion to the immigrant at the border everyone’s advantage.”
today if we thought we might find ourselves Back then, I was struck by how closely
homeless, fleeing war and poverty, in the next Rawls’s views mirrored my own. I now believe,
life? Imagining ourselves in those shoes makes it however, that the veil of ignorance is quite
harder to say: “Well, they’re not here legally. distorted in an important respect. Rawls’s veil
Let’s build a wall to keep those people out.” After encourages us to imagine a scenario in which
all, one day “those people” might be you. we’re equally likely to be rich or poor or born
Once I entered college, I found myself less with natural talents or limitations. But the truth
interested in karma and more interested in is, if we’re reborn in 50 years, there’s only a small
politics. It occurred to me that if we’re born chance that any of us would be rich or benefit
again at random, we can’t soothe ourselves with from white privilege.
fantasies that we’ll come back as one of the Almost half the world — more than three 10
precious few on the planet who live comfortably. billion people — live on less than $2.50 per day.
We must face the fact that our destiny is At least 80 percent of humanity lives on less than
inextricably linked to the fate of others. What $10 per day. Less than 7 percent of the world’s
kind of political, social and economic system population has a college degree. The vast
would I want — and what would I fight for — if majority of the earth’s population is nonwhite,
I knew I was coming back somewhere in the and roughly half are women. Unless radical
world but didn’t know where and didn’t know change sweeps the globe, the chances are high
who I’d be? that any of us would come back as a nonwhite
In law school, I discovered that I wasn’t the woman living on less than $2.50 per day. And
first to ponder this type of question. In his given what we now know about climate change,
landmark 1971 book, “A Theory of Justice,” the the chances are very good that we would find
political philosopher John Rawls urged his ourselves suffering as a result of natural
audience to imagine a wild scene: A group of disasters — hurricanes, tsunamis, droughts and
people gathered to design their own future floods — and enduring water and food shortages
society behind “a veil of ignorance.” No one and refugee crises.
knows his or her place in society, class position This month, the world’s leading climate
or social status, “nor does he know his fortune in scientists released a report warning of

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