Sometimes it happens that there's an injustice in society, and some people see it, and they organize to try to make things better. So far so good, but there's certain things that are gonna happen whether you want them to or not.
(1) People want to hear about what they're going to get, but not about what will be expected of them. So, "You won't be discriminated against anymore!" sounds great. Everybody's fine with getting rights and entitlements. But as for "Equality means equal responsibilities - you'll have to work like everybody else, follow the law like everybody else, no freebies and no favoritism" - nobody wants to hear that part.
(2) People get caught up in the romance of the struggle and can't let go. They look to it for both internal fulfillment and external validation. They get a charge out of marching with signs and chanting slogans, and they bond with others that way. And some become professional activists and actually depend on the struggle for a paycheck. So people become both emotionally and materially invested in it.
(3) The most sinister part is that there will always be people who join the movement caring nothing about the cause or about justice. They don't want to fix things; they want to tear everything down and build a new order on the rubble, with themselves at the top of the pyramid.
If you had explained all this to me when I was younger, I probably would have halfway believed it. Now that I've lived long enough to see it play out, I understand just how inevitable it is.
That doesn't mean don't work for reform. It does mean you need to know what you're getting into.
