xenophobia is such an unbecoming look

This morning brought me another one of those pesky “Damnit, I wish I had my camera!” moments. The cloud pattern can best be described as looking like TV static. I’d never seen anything like it. Then, as the sun rose, the static flushed a lovely shade of pink. Upping the ante, a clear symbol was carved in the corner of the staticky field—one that changed as the clouds shifted. First it looked like an OT, then a b with a slash through its stem, and then just a regular b. Or a sperm cell.

A conversation between some friends and me on Facebook the other day:

AK: Well I just saw my first status about the telethon for Haiti and how it was on so many channels but we can’t take care of the people here...it tells you then to repost as your status. WTF???? Do people not realize how poor Haiti was before the earthquake? I fucking hate ignorant people.

ML: And the hot thing is, I bet the people bitching about how we should take care of Americans first were the people out protesting health care reform.

AK: Exactly! Someone else just posted another one. Do they not realize that the earthquake wiped out all hospitals in the city???? These poor people can’t even get medical attention!!!! I am just so saddened and disgusted by this.

ML: I believe if you are getting your body parts hacked off by a handsaw sanitized with vodka, you deserve some American dollars.

JB: People bitching about American dollars going to Haiti are ignorant asshole fools. Missy, you’re right, although they’re whining about our money being used to help foreigners instead of Americans, they were probably the first people to bitch about healthcare reform meant to help Americans. And I’ll bet none of them make any effort to donate to charities helping the American poor.

If foreigners don’t help Haiti, then nobody will. Then the country will be left to rot. It isn’t like America, where when one part of the country is devastated by a disaster (say, the Gulf Coast in Katrina), the rest of the country can step forward with money and supplies. The parts of Haiti not destroyed by the earthquake are incapable of helping the parts that were destroyed because they are dirt poor themselves. They don’t have any money or supplies to donate.

AK: oh here is that status update that has me so fired up!

America: the only country where we have homeless without shelter, children going to bed without eating, elderly going without needed meds, and mentally ill without treatment - yet we have a benefit for the people of Haiti on 12 TV stations. 99% of people won’t have the guts to copy and repost ...this

JB: Grrr. Who posted that? I’ll bet it’s someone who considers him/herself to be a devout Christian.

JB: Seriously, if you’re THAT upset about America being “neglected,” then do something about it. Donate some money to a charity helping the poor in Appalachia, donate some time to a local homeless shelter or soup kitchen. And then give some money to Haiti, too. Just because you help out some poor Americans doesn’t mean you can’t help out some poor Haitians, too. Also, regarding the people bitching about the TV benefit for Haiti, a sad but true fact is that no TV station is going to give up valuable airtime to a commercial-free benefit UNLESS a major disaster happens. NBC isn’t going to randomly hold a primetime TV benefit to help homeless people in LA or hungry people in Kentucky. I’m sorry, but modern society doesn’t work that way.

What those people are failing to remember is that TV benefits WERE held for Americans in the past. Have they forgotten Katrina and 9/11? Giant multi-channel benefits were held after both events. And there are plenty of foreign disasters that don’t get shitloads of American aid and American telethons. I don’t remember much happening after China’s massive earthquake in 2008 or Pakistan’s massive earthquake in 2005.

The day American citizens and the American government stop giving money and stop holding telethons for victims of catastrophic disasters in foreign countries is the day I’m packing my bags for Canada. I really don’t want to live in a country where people say “Tough luck” when a country is knocked to its knees, just because that country isn’t America.

If climate change unfolds as predicted, there will come a day when every country will be affected deeply by disasters (drought, mega-hurricanes, tsunamis) and Americans will barely be able to help themselves, much less foreigners. But until that point, we are still in a position to help less-fortunate countries when they are stricken by terrible disasters.

I love how so many people insist that we non-religious folks are amoral, and you can’t have morality without religion. Yet it is often the non-religious folks who are bleeding-heart do-gooders and want to help other people.

This xenophobic nonsense really irks me. I wonder how many of those people are first in line to complain not only about healthcare reform, but the US welfare system in general. I wonder how many of them are screaming that Obama is a communist and a socialist and bitching about their tax dollars being used to sustain government assistance programs

This brings to mind all the pro-lifers who go to excessive lengths to prevent abortion, then wash their hands of the baby once s/he is born. They want to slash government assistance that could help that unaborted child eat three meals a day and stay in a warm home. They want to keep socialized healthcare out of American borders even though that healthcare could be the one thing keeping the unaborted child healthy, strong, and, somewhat ironically, alive.

song heard most recently before posting: Barfly—Ray LaMontagne