There is a cost to having to explain, again, why you should be treated fairly. The explanation takes time. It may require a degree of composure that the person asking for it would struggle to maintain themselves. And there is always the possibility that, after you have found the words, nothing will change.
That cost belongs in any discussion of equality. Otherwise we can become quite pleased with a commitment while overlooking the effort still required of the people it is supposed to help.
The Council of Europe reports that its anti-racism body has welcomed Ukraine’s commitment to advancing equality while calling for further action. That establishes neither that nothing has changed nor that enough has changed. The supplied reporting does not give the detail needed to judge particular measures. But the distinction between a welcome commitment and unfinished work deserves attention.
A promise has value. It gives people something to appeal to, and those responsible something against which their decisions can be examined. Dismissing every commitment as empty would make it harder to recognise genuine movement.
The difficulty comes when the existence of the promise becomes an answer to the person describing a problem.
We have a policy. We support equality. We have already said so.
All of that may be true. Someone may still be spending their afternoon trying to obtain something that another person receives without discussion.
There is a reasonable objection here: no institution can prevent every unfair encounter, and changing established practices takes time, resources and judgement. Expecting immediate perfection can obscure worthwhile progress. Yet this cannot mean that the burden of patience always falls on the person encountering the obstacle.
For ordinary life, a useful test is who has to do the extra work. Who must explain, pursue, complain, then explain again? The same question can be asked at work, in a community organisation or wherever we have some responsibility for other people.
Before asking someone to raise their concern through the proper channels, it is worth checking what those channels require of them. A procedure that looks perfectly reasonable from behind a desk may consume the only free hour somebody has.