... The sooner photographers realize that art is about expression and start putting more of their own expression into their work, the sooner the art world will fully accept photography as more than just paint-by-number snapshots produced by a machine held by someone who thinks they are creating art...
Judging by the future tense, we are not there yet, right? Thus the art world at present does not fully accept photography as equal, right? If so, then stop using wishful thinking (i.e., possible future state of affairs) as an argument today.
And its up to us, photographers, whether the art world would accept us as equal, right? We just need to start expressing ourselves and will be there? We only need to wish it strongly enough, visualize it, send positive vibes, and it will happen? Yeah, right.