When my son Joe was in high school, we got a ping pong table like lots of families do, and put it in the basement. Since he was new to the game he spent plenty of time getting frustrated when he couldn't make a shot or return a volley. Most of his frustration was the result of being in a wheelchair and having a different view of the table with no chance to deliver a wicked overhead smash in my face. To people using a wheelchair, the table is at chest level or neck level. Imagine eating pasta from a table at that height? Stick a napkin on your shirt.
Speaking of height, my standing height and superior mobility was tough to beat, so my son's goal in the basement when he first started playing was simply to learn how to play well enough to make our games competitive. He progressed in skill and confidence gradually over time, but I remained the most skilled volley person in the family, and could win most of the time if I put my game face on. I've never been one to 'throw' a game, or let the other guy win, although I might occasionally let up a little bit with a family member, except when it comes to Scrabble. I play that game to win, no matter whose feelings are hurt.
One day, as we entered our private basement ping pong stadium, I glanced over at an old desk and chair in the corner and a light bulb went off in my head. I grabbed the chair and moved it to my end of the table and sat down. Joe's eyes opened wide when he realized what was happening. In an instant, his perspective on ping pong morphed from an 'activity' with his dad, to something different, because now the game was more equitable. My height privilege was, well, gone. More than that, Joe actually had more experience and skill than me at this closer-to-the-ground version of ping pong.
We played that day, and every day thereafter, with me sitting in a chair. Playing ping-pong with a person in a wheelchair when you are sitting down levels the playing field pretty fast. All of a sudden, the games were more competitive and more interesting for both of us. My son developed more confidence and his focus turned to winning, like it is now when he crushes me in Words with Friends. We probably played twice as often because....it was just more fun. Well, that, plus I'm the type of guy who wants a rematch when I lose, and the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
Sometime later in that school year, my son's gym class was forced inside on a rainy day and the ping pong tables were put out in the gym. The instructor was quite surprised when my son grabbed a paddle for the first time and rolled over to one of the tables. He held his own with the standing unnamed opponent, in spite of the kid's height privilege. But Joe was so confident in his ability, (did I mention the apple doesn't fall far from the tree?) that he challenged his next opponent to play him sitting in a chair. The instructor was all over that and rushed to put a chair across from my son, instantly realizing there was some type of life lesson awaiting the whole class. Awkwardly the students must have instantly understood how their inherent height privilege was going to be taken away and how that leveled the playing field.
So, I imagine, another kid with courage, or someone who also saw the lesson about to unfold, or some other 'cool' kid took the challenge. The whole gym must have stopped as the match started. Of course, Joe smoked that kid and all comers that day in this new equitable ping pong contest because he was very good at this particular version of this particular game. Each kid he played probably loved playing that way, something new and innovative, and they all had an experiential lesson in height privilege.
Eventually word of all this made its way around the school and Kings High School had another cool kid, this one in a wheelchair. The gym teacher liked what he saw so much, that most rainy days he pulled out the ping pong tables in Joe's class. In fact, I think I remember my son beating the teacher a time or two that year. Playing ping pong in a chair = equity. Each person having the same paddle = equality.
We see both Equity and Equality in our daily lives in ways we take for granted or overlook. Take shoes for an example. Shoes are sold on the equity basis: it would be tough if everyone had to wear the same size shoes, wouldn't it? Not to mention dresses, or hats, or shorts. Clothing, to sell, has to be equitable: it has to be what is needed. In fact, would there even be malls if clothing wasn't sold on an equity basis?
Sandwiches, on the other hand, are sold on an equality basis: your size, age, height and whether you are in a wheelchair or not, have nothing to do with what you get. Can you imagine buying a Big Mac and getting ten all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles on a sesame seed bun because you are seven feet tall? Not a good use of 3,000 calories anyway.
Coffee uses both equality and equity to sell: Your coffee sizes were predetermined to be small, medium, large, extra large, ginormous and a boxful, but you can 'equitize' your cup with cream or sugar or sweetener or even low-fat-something to make it taste terrible if you'd like.
Even though I was Joe's dad, I had no idea what he was really facing when we started playing ping pong, and neither did any of his classmates that rainy day. You might call it height privilege or mobility privilege or any kind of 'advantage privilege' you can think of. We didn't know we had it until we didn't and we were faced with a situation that made it visible. We also saw what can happen when an inequitable situation is modified. Once you have recognized a privilege that is not 'achievement based', but only the luck-of-the-drawer-in-the-gene-pool-based, you are not only a better person, but smarter, and look at yourself and those without that specific privilege differently. I know the simple act of moving a desk chair to the ping pong table changed how I look at things.
As Joe's father, maybe it should have been my first priority to level the playing field, and I partially achieved that just by getting a recreational activity that could be played together with one of us sitting. The truth is I was still oblivious to the fact that both of us could play sitting down. There is an old expression my father used a lot about problem solving that says "If you can't raise the drawbridge, lower the river." Sometimes I think when we are faced with an obstacle and we can't raise the drawbridge, we stop at that, instead of looking for ways to lower the river, or play from a chair.
Equity is something that benefits everyone, and like this story, in many cases doesn't cost anyone anything: equity is not a zero sum game, there can be more than one winner, just like ping pong when you bring your own paddle...and chair.
