There is a great social evil among us, and I, for one, will not sit idly by the wayside and watch such oppression go on.
I am of course referring to one of the most oppressed groups in the world-short people. Where are the short corporate leaders, senators and presidents? Even the cozy U campus reeks with this vile heightism.
After extensive research and study, the United Nation’s Committee for Equality and Eradication of Evil has determined that there is an ever-growing disparity between the tall and the short.
Yes, the statistics are in and they are not good. In Monaco in 2003 there were 99 “big and tall” men’s shops per 10,000 people, while in Cambodia the figure was one.
The tallest 20 percent of the world’s population is an average of 1 foot 3 inches taller than the shortest 20 percent. In 1960 there was only 1 foot of difference. The tall keep getting taller and the short get shorter.
The 200 tallest people in the world have more dunk shots than the combined total of the lowest 40 percent of the world’s population.
A member of the tall elite is more than 80 times as likely to have dated Madonna as a short person.
We are increasingly becoming a nation, and even a world, of ‘reach’ and ‘reach-not,’ of ‘dunk’ and ‘dunk-not.’
In a study from University of Pittsburgh, graduating seniors of 6 feet 2 inches received a starting salary 12.4 percent higher than those less than 6 feet.
Eastern Michigan University asked 140 business recruiters which they preferred between one salesman being 6 feet 1 inch, and the other 5 feet 5 inches. Twenty-seven percent express no difference, 1 percent would hire the short and 72 percent would hire the tall (Arthur J. Snider Society Favors Tall Men: Proof, New York Post, Feb. 19, 1972).
With the exception of the gymnastics team, the vast majority of Olympic athletes are in the upper 10 percentile of height.
Molly Brown, a retired swimmer and short person commented, “You can fathom how bad it feels to walk into the opening ceremonies and thousands of spectators look at you and assume you are a gymnast. This sort of stereotyping and marginalization must end.”
The upper shelves of supermarkets, where many of the best bargains are hidden, have increasingly become the domain of an elite few.
Many of the short suffer from frequently blocked views at sporting events and in theaters.
High-school teenagers were polled as to what they thought was the ultimate career. Unsurprisingly, the majority said basketball player or supermodel. Media has brainwashed the youth to see tall as desired and short as not desired.
Increased globalization has pushed heightism to new and extreme levels.
Huge profits (’cause there are no other kind) are being made on lifts placed in shoes and other cosmetic appliances to help one appear taller.
A shoe that adds 3 inches to one’s outlook costs $155, but the piece that gives increased height only costs 2.3 cents to make and is probably made in a sweat shop full of short people.
Tall people are increasingly consuming the world’s dwindling resources (what with their huge bellies and all).
Evil corporate automakers put airbags in cars-why?-to blow the heads off of short people who sit too close to the steering wheel. It’s kind of fascist eugenics, you could say.
Ralph Nader, known to be a champion of egalitarianism is in the end a tall man, and has fully endorsed mandatory airbags in cars.
This marginalization is deeply embedded in our language. Such terms as “short-sighted,” “short changed,” “short-circuited,” and “short on cash,” are just a few examples of how a tall-dominated society has put down short people.
It may be nature, but let’s not let biology stand in the way of the true “social science.” The anti-heightist movement has borrowed from the Joan Didion of the feminist movement who said, “then let us transcend, via technology, the very organization of nature,” and the oppression, as she saw it, “that goes back through recorded history to the animal kingdom itself.”
Medical breakthroughs in preventing osteoporosis have saved many women from becoming short as they age. Genetic researches are trying to discover what makes one tall or short, so that one day we may reach the dream of all being the same height.
A proposed Height Equity Act is at the hands of Congress, which caps the height of the tallest worker at 1.5 times the height of the shortest in any given firm. The Height Equity Act also requires quotas for short people to be hired.
We must take action! I call for Short Pride Week, a center for short people here on campus and diversity classes that focus on short people’s struggles throughout history. Write your congressman and tell him to vote for the Height Equity Act.
We must rally together, short and tall, to end the anti-short propaganda that we are flooded with.
Short people arise! Join this progressive movement and burn those elevator shoes.