final edit: I withdraw the comment below since the analogy is too inflammatory and I certainly don&#x27;t intend to accuse the parent poster of racism. That&#x27;s not cool or helpful. I&#x27;ll leave it up so the replies make sense.<p>How about this quote from Ghandi instead:<p>“If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. ... We need not wait to see what others do.”<p>withdrawn original post:<p>----------<p>Your position transposed 50 years back in time:<p>&quot;I&#x27;m actually tired of the &quot;blame the general public&quot; argument. Blame industry for this. I&#x27;m not going to take the blame for racism every time I discriminate against a person for being non-white, nor am I going to assume blame when I promote a man over a better qualified woman. Unless billions of people change within the next few years (which is so unrealistic that I feel comfortable saying it won&#x27;t happen) then my individual do-gooder actions will only bring self-satisfaction, not real change.
Blaming the every-man for this stuff is a cop out. Corporations are to blame. Real change will only come about through government (semi-likely) or self-regulation within industries (very unlikely).&quot;<p>edit: replies below are furious that I equated racism with factory meat. This misses the point completely. They are not the same at all. The point is that industry and government follow popular sentiment and not the other way around. Corporations will sell you what you will buy. Stop buying it and they will offer you an alternative.<p>If you buy an disproportionately polluting product, you are polluting. You can&#x27;t avoid that by saying &#x27;everyone else is doing it, I have no choice&#x27;. When racism was institutionalized, you had a choice to go along with it or not. You had, and have, personal responsibility independent of everyone else.