I've been thinking about it because of the state of affairs in the world. The daughter of a friend in Ukraine is growing up in and out of bomb shelters because of Russian aggression in her country. How must it be to watch your child grow up, not knowing if you'll see her become a woman? 2/
Friends at home are afraid they'll be deported because their asylum claims will be revoked, or they'll be entrapped into deportation if they go to the courts, or seek to renew their I.D.'s, and what will happen to their citizen children? 3/
He doesn't want to stay in the United States permanently, but understands both he and his family are safer if he remains here, because members of a cartel were harassing him in Mexico while he sought to obtain a degree in IT. He couldn't be there for his son in Guatamala when an earthquake hit. 4/
And then you have Gaza. So many governments cosign on the idea that any criticism for Israel is antisemitic, but Palestinian children are dying. From famine. Injuries. Israeli snipers shooting them in the head while their parents try to get flour rations to feed at least some of them. 5/
Most of their homes have been destroyed. We have doctors explaining that they've witnessed IDF soldiers targeting humanitarian workers attempting to provide life saving care to victims of their atrocious, religiously motivated acts. 6/
And I'm reminded of Apartheid in Africa, the Kmer Rouge in Cambodia, American Slavery, The Holocaust, The Rwandan Genocide, the Armenian Genocide and so many more, and I wonder how this is any different. Why humans are so prone to dismiss mass cruelty. 7/
Why our way of life is so predicated on violence that we cannot have one lifetime (the expanse of a single, human life) without being witness to a heinous act of violence on a scale that is impossible to digest. Why so many are willing to dismiss it each time it happens...now...in the past. 8/
And maybe its just that I'm gay and have no children. That I have eight nephews and nieces who I don't live in proximity to. But I find myself wondering how you can value the safety, security, vitality, and wellness of your child, while devaluing that of another...because of an accident of geography
So I come back to that quote: "Children are dying." And I wonder if the rest of my life will be spent watching helpless as it happens over and over again, because people choose to bend themselves into pretzels in order to find a reason they should.