The American Earthquake
The response to the horrifically tragic earthquake in Haiti has been fantastic, so far as I can tell. Round the clock coverage on CNN, Twitter-text fundraising bringing in millions of dollars, incessant press conferences from the President. The American see a crisis, and in all our humanity and belief in our supremacy, we have acted swiftly to help the countless victims of this disaster.
But as heartening as that is, it’s also disturbing. We are capable of so much compassion, of so much immediate and decisive action, when we see a cause we deem worthy. No one has thought twice of the money they have donated, or of the substantial financial contributions our government is sending towards Haiti. Good. That’s the way it should be — selfless and unblinkingly generous, we extend our hands towards those that are suffering.
I don’t know what the teabaggers have to say about this, because the media has ignored it. Limbaugh and Robertson’s ludicrous and evil statements regarding the tragedy were swiftly chastised and then ignored. There has been no ambiguity as to what is right, and what is right is to help people that are suffering.
So where is the round the clock coverage, the internet fundraisers and the nonstop conversation about the tragedy happening in our own country?
Hundreds of thousands are suffering in Haiti. There are 15 million unemployed people in America, 26 million if you count those underemployed. These people are barely hanging on to their homes, to their families, to their health.
What’s more, 50 million people don’t have health insurance. We talk about the need to donate to Doctors without Borders so they can do their great work in Haiti, and there’s no doubt that they are worthy cause run by selfless doctors that we should all admire. But what about the 50 million that have no access to healthcare that won’t bankrupt them? Or the millions more who think they have that access, but the second they get sick, will have the rug pulled from underneath them?
Most strikingly, in 2008, before the full recession hit, there were 40 million Americans living in poverty. Literally unsure if they will be able to make it to the next day, the world caving in around them.
Where is the round the clock coverage for these people, suffering in our own communities? Where are the non-stop tweets to donate to our friends and family that truly need it? Where is the fearless, decisive action from the government to alleviate the problem, lobbyists and pundits not consulted?
Haiti has brought out the best in America. But when our own citizens, our brothers and sisters and friends and family, are suffering in our own backyard, we take seriously the astroturf, dog whistle racist tea bagging mobs that reach down to the most hateful parts of their heart, who insist on denying help and compassion to those who most need it?
I hope that Haiti receives record breakingly swift assistance and help, and they can rise up beyond the broken country they were before the earthquake hit. And I hope that then, CNN will turn its cameras to around the clock coverage of the blinding poverty in 50% unemployed Detroit and the ghost cities all around our own country, offering heart breaking footage of hungry children and demoralized, sick adults. I hope Twitter crowds out the #tcot hashtag with calls for text message donations to community organizations that can help rebuild our own country. And I hope that the Obama administration can take this new found determination, tone out the screaming hatred from the insane right, and act as decisively and as compassionately in our own country as we are for the small island that calls out for us now.
In a way, we’re all Haitians. And as we don’t have any compassion for the earthquake, we should have none for the right wing and bankers that got us into this mess. Time to take our own example and begin the tough, messy work of fixing America.
Notes
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grace-eludes-me reblogged this from whymyexsucks and added:
raises some good points. perhaps it’s because poverty is such a slow and nearly silent tragedy in this country we find...
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whymyexsucks reblogged this from jordansheartsucks and added:
whole thing, because...read an important...full. It’s pretty...
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jordansheartsucks posted this
