Random Acts of Sass

A commenter (Hi, A Mouse!) said:

I agree the VT deaths are sad. But I can’t help thinking that the heavy coverage of the incident is evidence that in general we fail to recognize or remember the ceaseless tragedies in much of the world. For example, during the two hours of the shootings at VT, something like 1200 children under age five in the third or developing worlds died from illnesses that are easily preventable or treatable in the first world. See UNICEF’s statistics for more. Are we numb to these deaths because this type of tragedy is constant? I suppose, more prosaically, that most individuals are affected more by tragedies whose circumstances are substantially similar to their own.

This got me thinking. It REALLY got me thinking. At first, my feathers were a little ruffled. (That tends to be stage one for me.) And then, I just started reflecting.

The Virginia Tech deaths are more than sad. They are a national tragedy. And the entire collegiate community has reacted because, you’re right. There’s a lot of pop psychology involved. We identify with people who look like us, talk like us, and act like us. I certainly do. It rips my heart out and it makes me cry. I think about the Holocaust survivor-turned-professor who threw himself in front of a door to save his students, and I fight tears. That’s painful. That’s unjust.

But I find myself unable to turn a blind eye to the injustice that is a crushing weight, and not only the United States but in the rest of the World. I have wept. When faced with the issues of overpopulation, world poverty, the crushing agony of the AIDS crisis, the issue of blood diamonds, children soldiers, hunger, genocide, and oppression, I have wept.

These things have driven me to my knees. I have cried out to God, begging Him for answers. How can there be such palatial abundance in some places and such desperate poverty in others? How can children in the sprawling suburbs of a prosperous America co-exist in a nation where other children, often just across the tracks, go hungry? Poverty, social injustice, and inequality is not a Third World problem.

It’s a people problem.

Many people who read this blog know that Robert Kennedy is my hero. ”A revolution is coming — a revolution which will be peaceful if we are wise enough; compassionate if we care enough; successful if we are fourtunate enough — But a revolution which is coming whether we will it or not. We can affect its character; we cannot alter its inevitability.” He spoke those words in 1966. What a hell of a time to be talking about revolution. The world was going to hell in a handbag.

It’s a people problem.

It’s time for another revolution. I reject the notion that we’re all oblivious. I reject the notion that nothing can change. That there is room for people to sit back and shake their heads about the under involvement of the people. Pick an issue and go with it.

What is it, this lie that’s been perpetrated against common citizens? That you must somehow be extraordinarily bright, and wise, and powerful to get things done? Who has allowed this lie? I believe that it’s the same people who have created the sweet little lie that the American people are too dumb to figure out what’s happening in American politics.

It’s a people problem.

People have been convinced that they’re too stupid, too out of it, and too sick of it to effect any sort of change. They complain about politicians, change the channel, and keep bitching about what’s happening in the world. It’s criminal. It’s a criminal conspiracy, perpetrated by the media, and politicians, and apathetic jerks.

It’s a people problem.

But the revolution is coming. Bobby said so. My favorite quote’s been posted here before, but it’s something that’s governed my life for a very long time. “It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.” He said that in Cape Town, South Africa. He was telling white South Africans, students, to resist apartheid. That it was radical. That was insane.

Virginia Tech was a tragedy. Children dying in Africa is a tragedy. There have been a hundred thousand tiny tragedies in my own life. My father committed suicide when I was 2. My mother died of AIDS. I’ve lost people that I loved desperately. There is empathy. There is agony. It lurks on every street corner and in every person’s story.

It’s a people problem.

So, I get down on my knees. I pray. I decide what to care about. Some days, I care about Africa. Some days, I don’t. And that has to be okay, because I’m just a person.

We’re all just people.