Whatever with Genocide, What Time Does America’s Next Top Model Come On?
Last night I had a conversation with someone I know very well. I thought I knew this person and what his reaction would be when he asked me how everything was going. I told him I had just watched ‘THE DEVIL CAME ON HORSEBACK’, a documentary about Brian Steidle’s experience in the Darfur region of the Sudan. THE DEVIL CAME ON HORSEBACK takes the viewer on an emotionally charged journey into the heart of Darfur, Sudan, where an Arab run government is systematically executing a plan to rid the province of it’s black African citizens. I know I shouldn’t watch these things before going to bed, but for some reason I end up doing in more than I’d like.
My friend attended a historically black university. He has read some pretty interesting books and can have some controversial views on what’s going on in the world today. So, I felt pretty safe telling him I just watched this film and was feeling pretty sad. He asked why. I explained because I just wish I knew a way that could truly help these people and that I really wanted to do something to make a difference, but what could I do? After some debate as to why it was all happening to begin with, I started getting the sense this person wasn’t on my side. This person who I thought I knew so well was telling me I shouldn’t put my energy into helping the Africans. WHAT?? I think I sat in silence for a minute or two before unleashing my fury on him.
He then explained that his version of making the world a better place was to attain resources, a nice place to live and settle down and have kids that will not allow things like Darfur to happen. Ok, so you want to populate the world more with kids that will do the work that you will not do because you’re too selfish, lazy and apathetic to care that millions of people are displaced from their homes and die or get brutally beaten on a daily basis? By the time he has kids that would grow up (and hopefully learn to do the right thing but that’s debatable when the parents are showing that apathy is perfectly alright) the African children of Darfur will be gone. This is GENOCIDE. Not a drive-by shooting in Oakland. We’re talking about mass murders on a very large scale. Interesting that someone of his background would have these opinions on the extermination of the black people of Africa.
So I was jolted into thinking, if THIS guy (someone who I considered to be left of the average American) is saying this to me, then do most people feel the same way? Are we all just too apathetic to do anything other than program our Tivos for another episode of Orange County Housewives? Are most people passing the buck hoping their kids will take care of the world’s problems while the parents create more problems?
To answer my question, ‘what can I do’ perhaps the answer is not to find a way to stop genocide in Africa, but instead find a way to stop apathy in America.
“To answer my question, ‘what can I do’ perhaps the answer is not to find a way to stop genocide in Africa, but instead find a way to stop apathy in America.”
And in the rest of the world, believe me. But America would help.
i whant to know why does people commint genocide