Why not TRY for a better FUTURE?

by Robert J. Chase

I am no hero. I am not someone to be honored, but I am human. I am a very privileged human at that, I live in America the land of freedoms; in a country where the world aspires to become a citizen. I have been given a life that is privileged in relation to the majority of mankind. So why am I so depressed right now?

I’ll tell you why; humanity scares me. I know I am far away from any hand to hand wars, or famines, or viral epidemics, or any genocide, but that is the problem. We in the USA are sheltered from the world, but why? Simply because we were born here or have moved here, why should we be able to live like the rest of the world is not in turmoil? I am not a person who is active in any organization that is working to help the rest of the world; I am simply a college student who is trying to worry about myself and my fellow humans around me. It’s every now and then when you sit and you hear a story or you read the newspaper or you see a movie that puts you were you belong. An article or movie that brings you back down from your pedestal that you inherited by chance. Mankind in general scares me down to earth far too often for me to simply ignore the facts. My problem is I’m an optimist and believe that man is inherently good. But at times like these when I’m brought back down, I question that.

There are so many genocides going on around the world. Simply by saying Darfur, many people know what I’m talking about. This sickens me. Have you even watched the movie Hotel Rwanda? If you haven’t I strongly urge you to, it might even make you feel like you are going to vomit, and if you do then it’s done its job. That movie is just a re-enactment of real events, but of course the actual events weren’t near as tame as they are in that movie. Nothing ever is, in a commercial world you have to have gore, but too much might actually offend people, god forbid. If there is one thing that will make people take action, it’s seeing how truly cruel mankind can be. There is a scene in the movie when two men are driving in fog and all of a sudden the road begins to be extremely bumpy, when they stop and get out seeing why I almost threw up my dinner. The scary part is not that they included this in the movie; the scary part is that this really happened. There were hundreds of bodies on the road, which was what was causing the bumps. I don’t care what situation your government is in, killing millions of innocent peoples simply because of their ancestry is wrong beyond belief. The movie cannot do anything to end with the happy ending that everyone secretly knows they want to see. Everyone wants to see all the actors on that road just simply stand up and walk off set, the reality is the real victims didn’t get to do that. They were driven over and probably simply plowed into a shallow grave to hide the bodies. The end of the movie is a shallow victory with no really grain of hope for mankind except a few heroes. The problem is there are too few heroes in this world and too many horrible people that are willing to kill innocent peoples simply to gain power; Power for what? Power so that they can get drunk all the time and do whatever they want? Where is the living in that? That’s NOT living that’s simply taking up space. Bringing down millions in order for you to live easily is one of the worst crimes against humanity that I can think of. I’m not a wrathful person, but that movie made me want the main character to simply go around and kill men in the militia that was slaughtering his fellow men. I know that would get nothing done, they wouldn’t have a chance to see truly what they were doing. I do not wish death to the militia that was in power during that genocide, I wish for them to live out there lives in a mental hospital reliving every single innocent face they witnessed right before they killed them. I would want them to die old men, men that certainly would be broken and dead inside long before they meet their maker.

The world is a cruel place that I am sheltered from with the exception of the few reenactments and articles that make it to me through various routes. The world is a horrible place. So what can we do? I don’t know how to solve the world’s problems, but I do know that we need to step down from our high pedestals and realize the world needs change. We need to end all of the hate that exists between people of different races, ethnicities, nationalities and any other way we separate people. There can be no good from these separations. They simply spread superiority complexes to the people of power, power that they gained by chance. There is nothing more angering to me than to see people of privilege such as me, who have never felt the cruelties of the world’s prejudices, who further these prejudices. The people around me that are racist anger me to no end, because they have absolutely no right to say the things they do. They have no clue how the words of one person can ripple, and push more people to unknowingly push these prejudices forward. These prejudices lead to nothing more than genocide and war. That’s all there is, prejudice, genocide, and war. My friends have a life that half the population of the world would give everything for, and yet they feel that they are getting screwed. They feel that by putting down another race or nationality they can feel better. Attitudes like this are what is keeping the world from moving forward, as well as movies such as Borat that makes fun of all nationalities and races. This is the filth we call entertainment? How can anyone truly think that it’s okay to lump a huge population of people into a single category and think its okay?

There are so many instances of the cruelties of mankind. So many instances, yet still it seems like we never do anything about it. Even when we watch movies such as Hotel Rwanda, or movies such as The Rabbit Proof Fence, we do nothing. These are only two instances out of thousands of mass genocides, yet most people have never seen and or heard of these movies. They aren’t blockbusters; they don’t have your favorite celebrity in them. They have people portraying REAL events.

I’m not saying that every single person needs to go out and join the Peace Corps, or work for world peace. But the next time you think or hear someone say something racist or against a certain group of humans, stop for a second and look around. Look and see how many young people are around you that might hear the words. Look to see how many impressionable souls there are. Have you ever stopped to wonder, what if I say this to this person and this little child hears? That child is to inhabit this world we have and are making for them. We have no clue what the future is going to be like, we can’t say that simply by never saying things that people will stop being cruel. What we can do is stop pushing our prejudices on the generations that are soon to inhabit this world; if we do there is a chance for mankind. There is a chance that that innate goodness I believe in really does exist and without intervention from people full of hateful prejudices they will rise in a world that is a much better place with fewer divisions and a simply better world.

Again, I am no writer. I am simply a student at a top Engineering School in the USA. I haven’t performed any heroic acts to further humanity. I haven’t solved the mystery of the universe, I simply have an idea; an idea for a better world for the generations that follow. On in which they won’t have to read articles about war everyday, or genocide, or watch movies portraying genocides that went on during their life time. Isn’t that worth putting aside our differences and prejudices? We all seem to say the children are our future, but if we instill in them the same prejudices that have been passed down to us, there will be no change. It reminds me of the saying that if you keep doing the same thing, you will continue to get the same outcome. If you keep passing on your hatefully unfounded prejudices, where will this world end up? Is it so hard to simply keep them to yourself? So I say to you, you don’t have to be a hero, just be human. Understand that humans are all different, but once you look past those differences you can see that we are all cut from the same cloth. Someday I may have the power to make a bigger difference, but for now all I can do is ask of you all, help rid the world of the hate that separates us; that’s the first step towards a better future.