Think Humanely

You can now watch the latest rendition of ‘We are the World’ on Hulu, a benefit song for Haiti. It opens with an introduction by Academy-award winner Jamie Foxx ,and the video itself is directed by another Academy-award winner, Paul Haggis. “Please do more than just watch. Reach deep into your hearts and give anything that you can,” says Foxx. Commercials consistently ran through the NFL playoffs imploring viewers to donate on Haiti’s behalf. On Sunday, Angelina Jolie sat down with CNN’s Amanpour to discuss the former’s trip to Haiti. The First Lady routinely pops up in commercials imploring viewers to call the Red Cross or to text a certain number in order to send donations on behalf of the country.

One might start to get the wild idea that the reason we’re able to spend so much of our time and energy concerned with the plight of another country is due to the fact that there are no Americans who are in need of similar attention and donations. Surely if American cities had been devastated by poverty, drugs, violence, and various political decisions that continue to decimate the working class and poor, we’d hear about it during our football games, interviews with Angelina Jolie, Mrs. Obama, and so on, yes? I mean, if Americans were suffering and in desperate need of help, we’d definitely be bombarded with the news and ways to help out our fellow citizens just as frequently, if not more so, than we have been in respect to Haiti, correct? Obviously not.

I’d imagine that you wouldn’t be able to throw a stone without hitting someone who can tell you all about the plight of Haiti, the various ways to help, the commercials and ads asking for aid, and roughly how many people have died. Throw that stone a hundred times, and you’ll be lucky to find someone who can tell you the poverty level in this country, where the US ranks in terms of class mobility, the poorest city or state in the country, the state with the highest unemployment or what state has the highest percentage of the uninsured. Hell, people in this country don’t even know what the three branches of government are, let alone ‘little’ details like these.

According to the most recent Census data, Mississippi has the lowest median household income at $37,790 as well as the lowest per capita income ($15,853), barely ‘beating’ out West Virginia, Arkansas and Louisiana. The poorest cities in the country based on per capita income? Allen, South Dakota ($1,539); Cuevitas and Brundage, Texas ($1,703 and $2,371, respectively); and Wounded Knee, South Dakota ($2,403). According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics,

Unemployment rates were higher in December than a year earlier in 371 of the 372 metropolitan areas and lower in 1 area, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Nineteen areas recorded jobless rates of at least 15.0 percent, while 10 areas registered rates below 5.0 percent. The national unemployment rate in December was 9.7 percent, not seasonally adjusted, up from 7.1 percent a year earlier. Among the 369 metropolitan areas for which nonfarm payroll employment were available,
356 areas reported over-the-year decreases in employment, 12 reported increases, and 1 remained unchanged.

The BLS also lists the unemployment rate for Michigan at 14.6%, Nevada at 13%, and Rhode Island and South Carolina at 12.9% and 12.6%, respectively.

Stateline.org highlights the growing numbers of the uninsured in this country:

Forty-seven million Americans went without health insurance in 2006, an increase of 2.2 million people from the year before, according to a report issued by the U.S. Census Bureau Tuesday (Aug. 28). It marks the sixth consecutive year the ranks of the uninsured have grown.

For the second year in a row, the percentage of children without medical coverage also increased. The Census Bureau estimates 8.7 million kids – or 11.7 percent – had no insurance, an increase of 700,000 over the year before.

…

“The huge number of uninsured Americans exceeds the cumulative population of 24 states plus the District of Columbia. This epidemic of uninsurance has reached crisis proportions, and Americans want to see the problem solved,” said Kathleen Stoll, health policy director of Families USA, a group pushing for a large expansion of SCHIP.

In a statement released by American Medical Association, Dr. Joseph Heyman, a board member, said, “It is unconscionable that the number of uninsured children has substantially increased over the past year. Children are our future, and for kids to get a good start in life, they need access to regular visits to the doctor.”

The state’s with the highest percentage of people without health insurance are Texas (24.1), New Mexico (21), Florida (20.3), Arizona (19), Oklahoma (18.7), California and Louisiana (18.5), Nevada (18.3), and Mississippi (18.1). An additional eight states have percentages ranging from 16-17.9.

Roughly 14,000,000 results come up when one Googles ‘Haiti AND donations.’ Some examples of these results:
American Red Cross Pledges Initial $1 Million to Haiti Relief

Support Disaster Relief in Haiti

Haiti text donations to Red Cross pass $5M

Haiti Relief Donations Qualify for Immediate Tex Relief

Haiti Earthquake Relief: How You Can Help

Haiti Earthquake Donations

Haiti Clothing Donations: Find Out Where to Send Supplies

Haiti earthquake response – Donate now

MCC to respond to Haiti earthquake, donations welcome

InterAction Members Respond to the Earthquake in Haiti

And this was just on the first two pages and doesn’t count entries from the same source.

Obviously, not all of the results are positive. To wit: one result was about Rush Limbaugh and, well, does one need to even explain what his position is about giving money to a non-Christian, predominately black country? I didn’t think so. Nevertheless, one can’t combine the words donation and Haiti without being bombarded with a plethora of ways to assist that country and its people, just as one can’t watch a football game, Hulu, or an average commercial break without being reminded of one’s financial obligations to them.

What happens when one performs the same search for Detroit? There are about 2,000,000 results, the first two of which are ‘Archdiocese of Detroit urges donations to Haiti,’ and ‘Haitian network group collecting donations.’ In fact, there is only one result on the first page that has anything to do with actually trying to donate money to help the city of Detroit, and guess what? The site is no longer available.

The easy explanation for the discrepancy between the outpouring of support for Haiti compared to the support for American citizens who continue to languor in what are de facto third-world conditions is that the cause of the Haitian crisis is not only easily understood but also spectacular. Americans like simplistic explanations (e.g., “They hate us for our freedoms”), and they like anything that looks like it could pop up in the next Michael Bay film. Americans also like it when the cause of such widespread suffering and tragedy isn’t their fault. These truisms are roughly the case with Haiti as far as most Americans are concerned.

The same cannot be said of the cities and communities all across this country that are still reeling from American-made disasters, social, economic, and political. Americans, in their laziness, ignorance, pettiness, and continued support of their sham political parties and corrupt politicians that they never vote out of office, are very much responsible for the uninsured rate in Texas, the per capita income level in Mississippi and Wounded Knee, South Dakota, and the unemployment rate in Michigan. This blame is one of the gifts of democracy. This isn’t (yet) a dictatorial government. We cannot point to a single tyrannical ruler who, by fiat after fiat, has created all the pain and suffering in this country. We can only point to ourselves, the citizens who either never both to vote for actual, genuine change, and those who do vote but not for change; rather, these men and women continue, year after year, election after election, to vote for the same people who have gotten us to where we are. They’re not pulling us out of anything – they’re simply pulling us further and further into this American-made abyss. The socio-economic turmoil in this country did not arrive overnight; it was crafted, in one legislative session after another, one free-trade deal after another, slowly and methodically.

And yet we do nothing for those who are electoral decisions hurt. We won’t admit our own culpability. We won’t face the consequences of our actions. But earthquakes? Hurricanes and tsunamis? Those are easy. Dealing with these doesn’t make us feel bad about ourselves. In fact, we can send a text to Red Cross and then pat ourselves on the back for a job well-done.

America: the only time we’re not tribal narcissists is when it comes to providing sustained help for our fellow citizens.