Help Outside, Ignore Inside

The key words for this might be: indifference, lack of priorities, lack of interest in what matters, wish to "make believe". Truth is, this is not a new phenomenon. I'm talking about the case of black people in the US who have AIDS and yet receive less aid than people abroad. It's not really making headlines in the newspapers, though it will work as excellent racist matter for white parents who wish to keep their white kids from "fraternizing" with those "infected monkeys". Oh yeah, racism is still heavy in some of the most developed parts of the world. In the brink of an election where there is a candidate who's said to be black, and really, I would have never known if someone doesn't tell me, and even so, I don't see him black (then again, I don't think Beyoncé or Halle Berry are black...), there are harsh differences made between citizens based on flimsy matters such as skin color.

In an article about the efforts made by the US Government to aid in the fight against AIDS, the reporter mentions that there are more black people in the US with AIDS than in some of the "target nations" the Government is helping. Why is the Goverment spending $19 billion in these people and let their own black citizens struggle? The article says that if they were a separated nation, the US would surely help them, and that the percentage of adults with this virus comes close to that of Uganda. Dude, that sounds bad. Why, oh why is it so? The American black population is at risk with this virus due to the fact that many black men have several sexual partners, and so the percentage of people infected among them is higher. Okay, first of all, why talk about "Black America" and "America"? Let's start with the unavoidable FACT that AMERICA is not a country, but a continent, mainly LATIN, so you are screwed. Then the U.S. is the U.S., same and only to all its citizens. It is, at the same time, rather interesting that different politics have to be issued for different groups of citizens based on the skin color. Does it means that in the US there's a "white law" and a "black law"? Or is it that you are to help the black in detriment of the white? Or the white in detriment of the black? Segregate straights from gays, Republicans from Democrats as if they were not the same? The Government should be one and only for the entire population, helping the poor and establiching the conditions for dignified living for all citizens.

For me, the schism between citizens and the aid they get separated from skin color is just another veil upon a larger fact: the people who elect the Government, and finance it with taxes, is the first neglected. It's not a matter of black or white, but a matter that good American taxes, paid with the working effort of American citizens and residents is shipped abroad to fund wars that give little to non to negative benefits for the taxpayers, and now, on top of that, after education is crumbling into abismal medicrity and there's no "health" or "care" in the taxing American Healthcare, a good chunk of that tax money is spent in other countries, to help people that did not elected the Government and didn't pay the taxes that fund that aid. All Christian values fade here. Hell, one thing is to be a rich country aidng with its excess to poorer countries, but the US has long since been a real "rich country". Wealth is concentrated in a few hands and the large portion of the population is slipping into poverty rather fast. Arrange your home first and then help others later. Stop with this campaign to get the favor of other nations, pretending to be the Big Rescuer and for once, rescue your own people.

How Must We Take This?

I'm really at loss. While I was cleaning my closet (and kissing good-bye so many old animé videos!!! ^_^) I put on one of my favorite channels, mainly to keep me distracted when teh work got too heavy or too much to cope at once (and you have no idea how many times that was!!! There was a point where not only I couldn't see the floor, but I wasn't sure about how could I get down of the stool I was standing on and put my foot safely on something without sliding and breaking my head open!). Oh this quite G rated channel, there were A FUCKING LOT of advertisements directed to Americans asking them to donate for different causes. All advertisements brought tears to your eyes. The poor African kids that had to sleep on plastic sheets, the mistreated animals that needed help to be rescued from abusive owners, the poor Polar bears were Mamma Bear and Baby Bear were about to die of hunger and so... and what do they requested from the viewers? Money. Send $X per month and help this or that. Two things struck me:

1. These advertisements seem to tell that Americans believe that money solve all problems, so they can literally "buy" piece of mind by giving money, but not involving themselves with the problem.

2. All these causes are directed to something "foreign" to their actual, human reality. Kids in Africa, polar bears, abused animals... but none of them were requesting help for the poor IN the U.S., the abused kids, the drugaddicts' rehab programs (charity programs and all those that should be ran by the Government), single mothers, orphans... because there are American orphans too, only they are not as fashionable as the Latin and the Asian orphans, or the tiny Russian babies you can let die in the backseat of your car. After all, when you get a little orphan, what's more cool, say that it comes from Alabama, or that it comes from Vietnam? Say it was born with the name "Katie" or the name "Soledad"?

Money is not the solution, not for this problem, and I can't believe how people can't suspected of getting ripped off with a thing like this. Do you really, really think they are going to help those kids? Those animals? When they are making such expensive advertisings? Yeah, right. Like the money from the Teleton's all go to the children's hospital to buy that cardiac-something machine they are using as an excuse for already ten years IN A ROW???

If you want to help, GET INVOLVED! There are things where muscle and will can do more than money.

Indifference or Other Priorities?

Today I learned for the first time what's "L'Arche of Zoé". I had read the headlines of many articles about this organization, and so far I assumed it was just another whacky terrorist group. Well, all we hear about are either terrorists, Democrats and Republicans or Stock markets. With that name, well, where would you put it? For the first time, today I decided to google it and find more about it. I didn't have much time to research since I have a job to do for myself, but what I found was that this organization is out to help orphans across the world. As you enter their site, you read about the situation in Darfour, where genocide is taking the lives of many innocent people. Of course, among those innocent people there are kids too. The site offers statistics about the number of children dying there.

The reality is terrible, but truth is that it kinda upset me. It made me remember this annoying advertisement that pops up constantly at CNN, where two black children are used to make people feel bad and "adopt" children from foreign countries by just sending them money and make them feel they are doing something for the "poor of the world", and giving some of their "abundance".

First, the accusations L'Arche de Zoé makes against ONG's such as the UN, can be on spot. It mentions economical support that goes to the wrong hands and peace negociations that only ensures more masacres. I do agree that there's a lot of crap going on there, such as this "Goodwill Ambassadors". I mean, celebrities who really, are not prepared (as in back uped with the proper career background), or just some people here and there, politically correct, who are given this lable, this position so that they can travel the world with a UN passport and "raise awareness"? Which are their real contribution? How much have their acting helped diminish poverty, hunger, injustice or war? So, when the site of L'Arche de Zoé says their efforts are proving painfully futile, I believe them.

However, when an organization seeks to help people far awayraising charity and appealing to the feelings of others, it upsets me. Okay, it might not be the case of L'Arche de Zoé, but people so quick and desperate to donate and do charity should think first. Why do you help the orphans of war in some far country, through some big enterprise, and maybe you are not even 100% sure that the money ACTUALLY goes to the orphans, and then you leave the orphans, the paupers of your own country. You help kids somewhere out there and complain about the crime in your city and the beggers in the corners. You just give the money, and that's as far as you wish to be involved. You feel good because you "helped" but then, how is that money spent? You think that giving them food and clothes and a house is enough to help them? Oh yeah, you build schools for them. Uhum, and the teachers? Will you provide the teachers? And what would you teach them? How great life is in the US, so that they allienate in their own country?

Question: Why Darfour? Kids enslaved in India are not needing help as well? Baby girls in China do not need help as well? Poor kids in the US with no health care and growing up in neighbourhoods where the death and gunshots are so common the only difference with warstroke cities is the lack of soldiers. Helping people in other countries is a way to evade what happens home, a way to close your eyes at the misery growing at home because "we are not as bad as others and we are not in such a bad situation as others". But is it true? Aren't we?

L'Arche de Zoé has gotten headlines because six of its members tried to get around 103 Darfour orphans or so to France. The kids were retourned to their legal parents, though it seems they were sent to orphanages. The six members were condemned to eight years of forced labor, and are pleading to be sentences according to the French Laws. I know people think they were righteous and now they are regarded as heroes and martyrs of a humanitarian cause, but I think they did things wrong. Sure, you have to help them, but you can't send every kid in peril to France! These kids will grow up and engross the number of immigrants and just breed more trouble. Today they are kids and people want to help them becaus they are "lost puppies", but what will happen when they grow up and add pressure to the labor market in France? Will you send them back to Darfour?

Inspite to the goodwill ambassadors and the corruption and bad choices, I still believe in the UN and the principles that gave birth to it. I do not believe in charity, and I belive countries should help themselves before helping others, but International Organizations such as the UN should tackle these matters, and not only "Darfour", but the trouble going around the world and instead of sending "goodwill ambassadors" to "raise awareness", they should propose a global development plan aimed to tackle conflict zones and poverty zones and help countries in need to solve their problems and find the way to grow and ensure welfare to their citizens.

It is not an opium dream, nor I expect this to happen overnight, but I must believe that you can solve things by actively addressing them insteand of jst talking, or otherwise I would have wasted my efforts at choosing my career.