Just Be Grateful... posted 1/19/2010 6:07:29 PM | 7 kudos what's this?     report abuse

LipGlossQueen9

I've got so much to put into this blog.....so many thoughts...that it's hard to know where to start off or what order to put my thoughts in. I'm going to get so many negative reactions for this blog, and it's okay. I don't mind if you call me names, shove a stick up my butt, or chew my head off. It says more about you than me, though it might say something about me. Who knows.

For a long time I was just like a lot of people, maybe even a little more extreme. I looked around at the economic situation here, saw people losing jobs and thought "why should I care about the Africans and all the other people in the world when I know Americans who are losing jobs?" Well, it hit me....it started with Haiti, but it wasn't just that. To be honest, that was just the beginning.

I watched a movie last night, an animated movie, called Barefoot Gen. It is a movie that recalls the bombing of Hiroshima, before, during and after. It was drawn and written by a survivor and it tells the story of his and his family's life and how he survived. In the beginning, the viewer sees that his family lived through extreme starvation. All food was rationed. The family was given a small bag of rice and told "Next ration's not 'til July". They then watched a crowd of people in line for their rations. They weren't allowed those rations because they had already gotten theirs. The younger son began to beg his father..."Daddy, can I pleeeease have some rice?" "No son," he answered, "It's not our turn."

It broke my heart. Even more heartbreaking was to watch Gen's mother, Kimiko, who was very pregnant, suffer because of severe malnutrition. The family just could not find food. When there was food available, a single sweet potato, Kimiko's heart broke because she could not give the food to her children and instead needed to keep it for herself to feed herself and her unborn child. I realize that the situation in America was just as bad during the Great Depression, but I think that back then Americans were a lot more appreciative of what they did have and didn't complain about what they lacked.

This is what started me thinking about how privileged we are here. This, and the situation in Haiti. I then began to think about all the people around the world who do not have the privileges that we have. I started to get really angry. I'm fuming, in fact.

I realize there are problems in America....problems with the government, problems with the economy, problems with the general situation, but what people need to understand is that we do have a certain amount of privilege. Even our homeless have a certain amount of privilege when compared with the homeless in places like Thailand, Haiti, India, and basically all of Africa. At least our homeless have shelters and a certain amount of free medical care.

We sit here in our warm houses (most of us), with our (most of the time) multiple computers and televisions, our cell phones and our stereos and our MP3 players...and we still have enough money to fill our cars with gas, landscape our yards, buy food (and sometimes go out for dinner), have Thanksgiving and buy Christmas presents for our friends and relatives. Need I go on? Then we complain about how we're getting screwed by the government, how Obama isn't a citizen, and how national healthcare will ruin the country.

I'm not saying there's nothing wrong with America. I'm not saying that I support the Obama administration. I'm not saying that Americans are all rich, or that the situations I described apply to everyone. What I'm saying is that even when we're in bad situations we're still better off than those people.

It blows my mind to hear kids complain about no food in the pantry when their pantries are full of food, they just don't want to eat it because it's not something that they think "tastes good". Kids in those countries would die to eat anything. American kids most of the time get three meals a day, even if one is paid for by the public school and even if their parent or parents have to work two jobs to pay for the other two.

It blows my mind to hear kids complain that they don't have their own laptop, or an Ipod or a texting cell phone or even a cell phone at all....when kids in those countries don't have computers at all sometimes. They don't have cell phones in Haiti. My Cultural Anthro professor regularly travels to Font de Blanc in Haiti to complete his doctoral thesis and told us that a satellite phone, one singular satellite phone, is shared among an entire village of people. One phone for an entire village, and if the weather's bad the phone won't work. And just forget IPods...

It REALLY blows my mind to hear people complain about not getting paid enough. I understand it's hard now, and there's not as many jobs as there used to be. You're getting laid off. Jobs are getting outsourced. I know. I'm glad to not be affected by this. I feel blessed. However, people in places outside America work for a dollar a day sewing together fancy lingerie cos men here just have to see women wearing it. They make our fancy clothes, our Disney merchandise, and other things that we REALLY do not need. For little money. Women in Eastern Europe, Africa, and Thailand are all but literally (and sometimes literally) forced to prostitute themselves to feed their kids and then you wonder why they try to scam you. Think about it. Doesn't make it right but try to open your mind a little.

You talk about the evils of national healthcare but at least you have some healthcare. In Haiti people are dying because they are breaking their legs. Doctors Without Borders was turned away. I think the Haitians would be thankful for national healthcare...even with the flaws.

And what makes me the most angry, I think, is that you complain about your rights being taken away because you don't have the right to carry your gun in some places. I'm sorry...but in the Middle East and some places in Africa the people live under the constant threat of their own governments killing and torturing them if they dare to speak out and are caught. Women are killed for the "crime" of being raped. And you get mad because you think Obama's not a citizen, and the ACLU doesn't like what you say. It also makes me angry that you complain about your high crime rates and say we need to not take in Haitian orphans when you're not living under the constant threat of being raped, killed and eaten by tribes. Gangs are a threat, but not like that. It's just NOT like that. And orphans? Come on. That kind of thing is just not bred into people. You can't be that dumb.

I'm not asking you to shut up. I'm not asking us to stop thinking of our own country, and I'm not saying that everything is coming up roses here. I'm asking you to think. Think before you complain about no Ipod, "no food", low wages, bad government, the losing of rights, etc. We have it pretty good. We're lucky.

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