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2168154 Responseshttp://www.racerelationsproject.org/2010/04/300000-whats-it-mean-to-us/300%2C000%21++What%27s+it+mean+to+me...to+us%3F2010-04-21+17%3A40%3A19Sam+Richards to 300,000! What’s it mean to me…to us?
To the 300000 people who died, i guess in reality people here in america or anywhere else do feel not affected for it like they do with loved ones but i get the feeling of guilt because i dont know what to do or feel i cant do anything about it and i just move on with my life. I was sad about it of course, but i didnt really cry – its like me saying "oh it happened, that is sad, and i just move on with my life" i guess we feel that doesnt really effect us cause we dont feel the pain and suffering ourselves and we feel that it might never happen to us. People in haiti gone through some many bad and suffering experiences that i myself cant imagine, but since they are there and we are here, i guess we cant feel so much sympathy as those who experience the pain there.
I think she makes a really interesting point because if something as devastating as the earthquake in Haiti happened in the United States we would most certainly stop and think and have some time to mourn. I am not quite sure if anything like this occurred after 9/11 or not but she really makes a good point that when it is people we know we stop and mourn their passing but when it is somewhere that we feel removed from, especially because we don’t necessarily know them first hand, we kind of brush it off. This kind of goes along with the whole white guilt idea, we feel bad about it but don’t think there is anything we can do. When we act like this we are dehumanizing people and making it seem like they are not worth our time.
This is very interesting and true. I’ve always thought about this. When the tsunami hit in India, or whenever there is some type of disaster, we report the story for a couple days and then move onto another issue. When 9/11 happened, something that affected a lot of the people in the United States, it was on the news for months. It is interesting how we as a society do not sympathize as much when we are not directly involved with the situation. When we are removed, we say “oh that is awful” and then move on with our lives.
That’s definitely an interesting thought, the problem with that is though, think about it, if every time someone died, or a few people died, or a large group of people died, if we all just stopped what we were doing for even a week, what good would that do? It is definitely very devastating and it sucks to deal with death, especially if it is someone who affected you personally, but life goes on and you have to also. If everyone just stopped what they were doing for some period of time, it would drastically affect our lives MORE than the death or deaths would affect our lives. Would you HONESTLY take off an entire month from school or work, let alone the rest of the year, if someone in your family died? There’s just things in life that can’t be avoided or put on hold for such a long period of time. Of course it would be very upsetting and would take a lot of time to cope with and get used to, but that doesn’t mean that you should stop living yourself. I completely agree that we have to move on. Of course we should be doing everything we can to help the people in Haiti, which there are people over there helping where necessary. I don’t think the point was that we should just forget about it and move on, I think the point was more that you take some time out of your day to mourn, but you also do the things in your life that need to be done. I know that when my grandfather died when I was in high school, I took a day or two off of school to mourn and go to his funeral and everything, but after that I went back to school, I took my tests, I did my homework, because if I didn’t, then I probably wouldn’t be here at Penn State now. You can’t just stop life and put everything at a halt or else the world wouldn’t change and things wouldn’t get better. We’d just be living in a world full of sad, mourning people waiting for the next person to die and mourn to. I understand where you’re coming from, it’s sad to think that after such a devastating event to happen, that people can just go on with their daily lives, it seems like people don’t care, but I’m sure they do. No one can hear about such a horrible disaster and not even care a little bit, there are just some things that need more attention than others. For some people, the most they can do is donate money. You do what you can, and continue on with your life, tragic events like this are always in the back of your mind. It’s not that people are moving on and just forgetting about it, they’re just moving forward and continuing on with life.
This is a very sensitive topic to talk about because it was one of the greatest disasters in the modern world were over 300,000 people perished and it is sad that people did just move on. With that said I have done my fair share of helping without physically going down to Haiti and getting my hands dirty and I feel like some people still feel like I can do more. I honestly do not know what else to do besides give money or donate canned goods or old clothing to help them out. What ive done, in my eyes in plenty to help at least 5 people put some food in their stomach or have one kid able to walk on the ground without rocks getting stuck in his feet. The is a real big problem down there and its going to take years to recover, but people have to remember we have lives to live as well and if we stop living ours to help them then where does that leave us? It’s a terrible situation and you want to help as much as possible but some people don’t have the means to continuously help like other may.
I completely agree with this student that this is a very important question, why should we move on with our lives when 300,000 people die versus when for example, my relative dies, I can take days off to mourn? So in my opinion, it all comes down to the issue of self-centeredness like Sam mentioned in class. We are by nature, selfish, and when it comes to issues like who do I save if I can only choose myself or someone else, a stranger, or even a close friend or relative, in the end, mostly likely, I would still choose me. It is shocking to hear that the amount of people who died in Haiti, 100 times more than the people who died in 911. The reactions of the two events are obviously different. But I think even though people tend to be self-centered, still through deeper understanding and exposures, we can become more self-less and concern more about others.
For instance, taking soc119 is already one way for us to increase our exposure of social and ethnic issues around the world. Some of us may become more selfish, whereas, many will become more selfless and have more concerns for others who are not living as well as us. Personally, I think taking soc119 has definitely increased my exposure to the problems and happening around the world and also inequalities among different races. During class on Tuesday when Matt (is his name Matt?) came to speak it was really eye-opening of how Haiti really is after the earthquake. I think it was more personal and it felt closer and I cared more. So I think why 300,000 people dying we are not reacting to it as much has to do with the physical distance on one point. Also, I felt that I wanted to care more about the earthquake in Haiti, but I don’t watch TV and I’ve been busy with all the other things in my life, so it sort of just pushed me forward with my life. I think if we were to have a moment of silence everyday for Haiti, then I would think about it more and wanted to get involved with helping more. Also, I think it might have something to do with race as well. When the earthquake happened in China, I was worried to death, and I watched news every hour if not every day. So why am I not doing the same thing for Haiti? This is a question that I ask myself. Do I not care as much if the people don’t look like me?
I think that people just move on with their life’s and forget about things like this, because maybe they feel there isn’t anything they can do. Sometimes people may feel too busy with their lives like with all the tragedies we have every year people may just feel it’s not possible to save everyone. So they just give up. I think that it is worth every effort to try to save as many life’s as possible, even if you think it can’t be done. It is definitely worth the try and I think if we had more helping hands we would be able to save more lives at a time.
I completely get what the person in the video is saying, it is not until anything hits us personally that we actually get up and do something about it. Haiti is a very small country and its impact on the world has been minimum, what I'm trying to say is that the situation would not have been the same if it was a country great significance like say the United States of America or the United Kingdom or Japan for that matter. If a natural disaster like the one in Haiti would have occurred in any of the major cities around the world, I think that people would have reacted differently to the same event.
Not that Haiti is an insignificant country but its just that the problems that Haiti's having does not impact the people around the world personally. Most of the people around the world do not have any connection with Haiti may it be economically or personally, it does not really affect the people in their day-to-day life.As cruel as this may sound this is how the world is, most of the people would not bother to help the people that are under distress, even if they have to just sacrifice a very small part of their life. It is very common for a person to think how his small contribution is going to help to rebuild the life of some person in a different country.But what people fail to understand is that how a small part of their income or time could make a big difference in someone else's life.
This does not mean that people do not empathize for them, by just feeling sorry, is really not going to help them in Haiti. For example, does not really affect me personally, it has not really affected my day to day life, so i cant I can’t stop going to class to go there and help, I can’t donate large amounts of money. It was great to have Sam collect money for this, as this gave a lot of opportunity to a lot of people in class, who wanted to donate money, but were quite lazy to use any of the other sources.
I really dont know if the money that i have sent is really gonna make a difference there, but I think i have done what i could in my present circumstances to help them. Hopefully the money gets to them and it benefits them.
This girl brings up a very interesting point here and I have a couple different viewpoints on it. First, let me start by saying that there are people in the world that are very self-centered and unwilling to help other individuals. There are those that care more about themselves and don't even care a little bit when they hear that terrible events have happened that killed thousands. Some people see it as though if it doesn't directly affect there lives than why should they care. However, there are tons of people out there who take time to think about those individuals who are suffering and those that just lost loved ones. I, personally, know of individuals who went down to New Orleans to lend a helping hand after Hurricane Katrina destroyed everything in its path. Even if someone just takes time out of their day to think about those lives that were lost and perhaps say a prayer for them I think that says a least a little something and shows they do care about others. I know when I hear about a tragic event like the earthquake that hit Haiti and killed so many innocent people, I do feel extremely sad and often do something such as take a moment of silence and pray for them but I know there is often more I wish I could do. However, just because I can not physically be there to help out and make things better doesn't mean that I don't think about something like when 300,000 innocent lives are taken. Like I said before, it's true that some people don't even think twice about news like that upon hearing it and go on doing whatever it is they were doing at the time because they just don't let it affect them. However, while we should try to help others as much as possible and at the very least take a moment of silence for them I can see how we wouldn't let that affect us from taking tests and stuff. Things like that should affect us in some way even if it's just in a small way but at the same time we often don't let it affect our daily duties and such because they are not individuals who we know. If a mother, father, relative, or friend dies than there is a personal connection there an feelings and emotions that are rooted deep in a person that make it harder to just forget about or go on with our daily routine. I don't necessarily think though that it makes us bad people for letting the death of a loved one affect us more than the death of others. However, as stated before I think there should be at least some emotion felt upon hearing news like that.
This is very interesting it is crazy how we humans really don't care about disasters unless we are directly affected by them. The normal response is to just be like, "oh that sucks, I hope things get better" I even do this a lot. Its not even that I don't give a fuck its just that I also have a life and I also have my own well being to worry about on a daily basis. I know that may sound really selfish but its the truth, if I ever want to be in a position to help other people later in my life then I need to do work and get mine. I mean I am all for helping people and giving to other but I feel like I need to get my shit straight first. I want to be in a good position to help people first instead of being some broke ass, bum ass, college student who really can't really help drastically.
It has been said, “That if you do the crime, you must pay the time.” It has also been said that no one should be let off the hook for any crime regardless of how big or small. Bottom line if someone does something wrong they should have to pay for it for the rest of their lives. However, I have always wondered, for those who say these things, have they ever really place themselves in a criminal’s shoes? Have they ever tried to understand or even listen to the situation that the criminal was in? I’m sure many people would answer no to these questions. They would more than likely feel like “why should I even tried to understand?” “There is nothing to understand.” “They committed a crime and should be put away for it.” Now I agree with these statements to a certain degree. I mean people should be punished for their crimes regardless of size, but that does not mean that we as society should throw them away because they have made a mistake.
Now for most of us, I know the number one question that keeps your mind going. You would say, well what if that person murdered someone, should we show compassion and sympathy for them? The answer to that question is yes. I’m sure many people will be surprised to this answer, but after reading a letter from an inmate that my Soc 119 teacher knows, you would have to consider why I say yes. I know that this person has killed someone. Yes he has taken someone from their family. So this would make society think that he had or has no compassion or sympathy for anyone else. However, reading the letter would give everyone whoever felt that criminals have no feelings a different perspective or I would hope so.
In the letter the inmate talks about how even hardcore souls can place their hatred for one another to the side just so that they help one another. He explains how small gestures towards one another can be so special. The situation the man spoke of had me thinking how could this even occur? I always thought that criminals who committed murder were cold hearted serpents who only saw their pain and suffering. I thought they committed the crimes they did because they wanted society or specific people to feel the pain that they felt. I never even considered that they feel more than that. They hurt just the way those of us who have committed crimes do. They shed tears, and long for love as well as acceptance just like the rest of us.
I mean these men have to pay for more than just the life they took or the time they will spend in prison. These men have to live with people looking at them sideways, people always being afraid of them, never ever having another real shot at life. They are in prison trying to become better people, but we as a society won’t even give them a chance. I could not even imagine how that feels. I’m forever grateful for this letter and the sentimental value it hold. I am thankful for the lesson it contains.
Additional Blog#1
When we see something happen and learn of something that happened we are more likely to walk away from it because it did affect us directly. The reason we think this fine is because we think to ourselves, what can I do? I did not know this person so why should I even be concerned. Furthermore, they would go as far as to say that hey it wasn’t me so I’m taking responsibility.
What most people fail to realize is that no one in this world is immune to the trials and tribulations of life. Yet, we all act as if we don’t have direct connection to us then our lives goes on. The problem is that no one wants to take responsibility for anything. I mean these are human beings that need our help. We should not care if affects us directly or not. I am pretty sure that if something did happen to us individually we want help from anyone, so let us return the favor and start to care about things that happen outside of our little worlds.
All people are not the same. there are some people who are diagnosed with clinical depression because they feed into all the mishaps in the world. people dying, killing each other etc. lets not forget all the natural disasters that are occurring all over the worlds. It seem abnormal for someone to be so concerned about what is going on in the world today to the point they are depressed.
Most people are only concerned when it effects he/she directly. If your mother/father/sister/brother/aunt/grandfather, etc were killed in Iraq or the world trade center bombing, your reaction would be different. it is okay to feel sad for a while and thoughts of it happening to you, one of your family members or friends will occur but there is only so much time you can spend thinking about people you do not know.
I experienced this same feeling when the earthquake happened in Haiti or seeing documentaries about the genocide in Dalfur. I could not really understand if I was just being selfish or just plain ignorant. Thoughts of my people in my country of birth ( Liberia) suddenly rushed into my head. and i start thinking "what about my people in Liberia?" We have been recovering from a 14 year war and a corrupt political system, why are people not sending us money? And what are these funds to Haiti are receiving doing for them? thoughts kept going..running through my head. I could not shake this feeling of complete ignorance. i felt sorry for Haiti, being that they were the poorest country in the world, and now to add insult to injury they have to rebuild their country all over again. It bothered me, but not to the same extent as it would if my country was in the same position.
When you loose somebody you are close to , a part of your life is missing. you must go everyday without seeing that person and feel a sense of resentment. otherwise..we do not care. Thats the real problem. If something isn't effecting us, we are far more likely to not care about it as much as we should. I think that when we hear about 300,000 people dieing and compare that to the 3,000 that died on September 11, we really need to consider the extent of this crisis. If a crisis like what happened in Haiti, happened in New York City, how different would it be. The entire state, and everyone who has relatives that live in New York would be working to help, because it effects them. People from other states would help because it is fellow Americans, but not to the extent that people who are personally by the tragedy would.
I think it is hard to say that people “don’t care” about what happened in Haiti, because you do not know the thoughts that go through people’s minds. Of course I care that these people’s lives have been absolutely turned upside by this terrible natural disaster, but short of flying to Haiti to lend a helping hand, I do not believe there is all that much that I could do that would actually make a difference. Yeah, I could donate money, and I did put in some money when Sam was collecting it, but do we really know where the money is going? Of course I know Sam would not steal our money, I am not trying to imply that, but is the money that anyone donates really making a huge difference in the relief effort? I obviously have not been to Haiti so I am just pulling this stuff out of the air, so call me naïve. If you are a student at Penn State, chances are you have had a pretty damn good life. That being said, it is hard for many people to open their eyes to what is actually going on down there. Most of us have not seen extreme poverty, we have not lived it, we have not experienced it. We cannot relate in any way, shape or form to what is going on in Haiti so it is hard to emotionally grieve. Of course, anyone with any human compassion will stare at the television while thinking how terrible things are and how horrendous those conditions are and how tragic it is that so many people are displaced, lost, or dead, but then the program ends and the news coverage is halted. Then we go do our homework, cook dinner, call our parents and we forget what those Haitians can never forget. I cannot mourn someone who I never knew, but I can mourn the situation. And I have done that, as I am sure many others did as well, but considering my life was not altered by the earthquake, I will inevitably forget because in my little world, I have other things to do. That sounds really harsh and ignorant, but my life goes on, and believe me I know how lucky I am that my life goes on happily.
Now if a family member died, like one of my parents, then I would mourn and my every thought would be consumed with that. My mother, in particular, is my best friend, she is someone I can count on no matter what, and if I did not have her my life would be 100% different. That would impact me, that would change my everyday routine, that would change my life. I think that is a main reason why people do not seem to “care” about over 300,000 people dying, because our lives go on unchanged.
Our society conditions us to be a self-centered country and only care about our own lives and how we can benefit our lives for the better. If we do not feel any personal connection to a disaster or death then we do not take the time to mourn. I honestly believe that, especially in college, people are not educated on what happened in Haiti. They do not know how many people died, who died or what has happened to them since the disaster. Especially since this disaster did not occur in our own country, it is difficult for people to try to connect and take time away from their “busy lives” to help other people who they have never even met before. I live in New York and know many people who were affected by 9/11 and we still discuss it on a regular basis, yet I do not know anybody affected by the New Orleans hurricane and never talk about that. Within our own country we cannot even have enough compassion to care, so how are we expected to care about other countries.
Dealing and coping with death is a reality of life that everyone has to go through at some point. The tragedy in Haiti was absolutely devastating and 300,000 people lost is a tremendous number. But do I really need to answer the question of why it is acceptable to take some time off if an immediate family member died as opposed to all of these people abroad? Unless you personally knew someone, or multiple people, who died in Haiti, this tragedy will simply not have the same emotional toll it will bear on you if say, your mother or father died.
Please keep in mind that I am not at all saying that the lives in Haiti mean less than someone’s loved one here in the United States. But it is pretty obvious that we will be much more affected by a family member dying than thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of people dying overseas who we have never made contact with. Any help that you feel necessary to provide is very grateful. But we absolutely need to move on with our lives and not mourn these deaths by “taking off” for days or even weeks at a time. This practice, though, would be acceptable if an immediate family member were to die.
As I have said, death is a part of life that happens every second. According to the U.S. Census in 2010, a little over 150,000 people die a day worldwide. So in just two days, 300,000 people die worldwide, which is the equivalent of the Haiti death toll. And yet we do not sit around, mourning the loss of all of these lives each and every day. The Haiti earthquake was indeed more tragic due to the massive loss of people of all ages in such a small area. The point I am making is that it is, and should be, perfectly acceptable to move on with our daily lives after tragedies occur. If you feel the need to provide help, that is great. But not everyone feels that need, and it should be up to each individual whether or not they want to put the time and resources into helping those people abroad.
As for what we should do to help, this is really a personal choice. Some give just a little bit of money toward a nonprofit on site. Others feel the need to travel to Haiti and see what they can do to help. Whatever the amount of help someone gives, if any at all, is something each person should deal with on their own personal level. This also implies that no one should ridicule others for not doing anything to reach out and help these people. If you want to do something to help, go for it, but please do not yell at others if they choose to do nothing. They may be spending their time and money helping others closer to them or feeding their own family.
I think this is an interesting question and one that should be asked about many tragedies, not just the one in Haiti. I was actually thinking about this when September 11th was brought up in lecture. Although we paid much more attention to September 11th than we did to the tragedy in Haiti, I felt that many parts of America forgot about September 11th soon after it happened. I don't know if forgot is the right word.. it's just that it was put on the back burner and lost it's intense focus in people's lives and conversations. I think it is just too easy to get caught up in our own lives and stop caring about something that we are not directly seeing. Although I was in Pennsylvania at the time the towers were hit, which is fairly close compared to other areas of our country, I didn't feel the direct affects of the event. No one that I knew was involved or even near any of the crashes, so it was easy for me to remove it from my thoughts. I think the only thing that kept September 11th in the minds of a lot of American's was the fear that something like that could happen here and that it may happen again. I guess I'm just saying that yes, I agree, we focused our attention much more intensely on September 11th than we did on the earthquake in Haiti, but I think September 11th escaped the minds of the majority of American's soon after it happened. I also thought that little attention was on Hurricane Katrina and the tragedy in New Orleans. It was in the news for a few weeks after it happened, but many families suffered the affects for a substantial amount of time after that.. long after it was constantly broadcasted in the news. And since this didn't affect the majority of American's and was far from where we live, we quickly forgot. And that happened to "our" people. This isn't an issue just about Haiti or "other countries" either. It is the same situation when it come to racism and simply not understanding other people. There are tragedies everyday, all around the world, and sometimes even next door. It is easy to push it out of our minds because it is difficult to think about. It is important to acknowledge that there are people everywhere that are worse off than us.. but it is also more efficient to find a tragedy that means something to you enough that you want to create change and do something about it. I understand what this girl is saying and I agree that it is tragic that we don't pay attention to this event more and want to help.. but it is just so easy to get caught up in our lives and it's very intimidating when you don't know how to help or where to even start.
I think that most people naturally feel that those types of things do not affect them because they are unable to see the connections clearly. That makes everything less personal and with humans being selfish instinctively, it is not always someone’s best interest to help out a cause as far away as Haiti. Of course if it is our own family members or people that we are close to we will act upon it differently. If people felt like they would actually make a difference or be significant in some way, then more people would take action. Due to feelings of unimportance, it is crucial for people like Ian from class to come and talk to us about how you can actually make a difference. Otherwise, people—especially students and others who are very involved in their surroundings (i.e. very engaged in their careers) do not see the need or find the time to help with larger issues. People pretty much take on an “Oh, they will handle that; they don’t need me too” mentality. Until people feel needed, they won’t really respond. It might make us feel like we are “bad people” or extremely selfish when we realize that we turn our backs on these issues on a daily basis, but only momentarily. Then, we go right back to what we were doing as if nothing happened. The guilt doesn’t last long until we talk about it. And when we stop talking about it, it vanishes again.
This girl brings up a very interesting point. Definitely something I have thought about but have not directly responded to. I feel like tests will always be the most important thing, which is kind of messed up. A test will never be cancelled for any reason. At least as far as I know. But that is beside the point. We all react to things differently. If something huge in this country happened and 300,000 people died. I don’t know how I would react. I couldn’t tell you. If it were someone close tome… who knows. But I do not think it is that we don’t care…
I don’t think that people should just move on. I just think that people don’t care as much because it does not affect people directly. It is crazy though. Just because it doesn’t affect us directly people act like nothing ever happened. Some people do not even think about it. It is crazy how some people do not even know about it. I remember talking to my friend and being like “Did you heard about what happened in Haiti?” and they responded with “No, what happened?” I could not believe that some people did not even know what happened. It is a perfect example of egocentrism. People in this country are so oblivious to what happens around us. And to be honest I used to be one of them. Before I took Sam’s class I was oblivious to pretty much everything that he brought up in class. I am so happy that I took his class because I am so much more knowledgeable about what is going on around me. Before I took this class I did not even know what the war was fought about. I did not know the hardships that native Americans go through day to day. I did not know about the Haitians and what they go through. This class has truly opened my eyes and I am thankful that I took this class.
About what is going on in Haiti. I feel very bad for what they have to live with and what they have to go through. Every chance I get to help them I donate money. I wish that I could go there and do something. But in cases like this I feel helpless. Even with problems with racism I do not know what I can do. I want to help and I want to make a change but how can I make a change when everyone around me does not want to change the way that they think. People do not care. People are okay with being racist. In fact some people like being racist and they like the fact that they are white and they do not care that other people are discriminated against. I want to be able to change the views of other people but sometimes I feel like one person can not do anything to change any thing.
I grew up in a very diverse environment and I wish that people could see the way that I see and feel the way that I feel. However it is not that easy and it will never be that easy. I hope that one day everyone will be equal and everyone will be happy. I hope this will happen someday.
This is a great question. Sam definitely touched on this in the class about Haiti and I think it really hit home for me when he related it to September 11th. When September 11th happened it was devastating for everyone in the country and the entire world paid attention to how we recovered for a very long time. To think that 300,000 people died in Haiti because of a natural disaster is incomprehensible. I cannot imagine if something like that happened to the United States and everyone else around the world pretty much forgot about it after a few weeks. Haiti deserves all the help and attention they can get and I really hope they can somehow pull themselves out of this terrible situation.
I have to admit that I am one of those people who don’t really feel affected by news of natural disasters in other parts of the world. Problems somewhere else don’t seem real and don’t put speed bumps in my everyday life. I know I shouldn’t be self-absorbed, especially considering the fact that my parents adopted six of my brothers and sisters when they were orphans in the Philippines. There are ten of us total, and we all grew up thinking our family was normal. My parents in fact have said they did not plan to adopt, but when they were overseas and saw the huge need, they had an “aha moment” and went with it. They experienced a social issue up close and personal and chose a way to do what they could about it. People come face-to-face with social issues at different times and in unexpected ways. Not everyone adopts six kids just because they want to make life better for orphans, and not everyone sends money to Haiti or builds houses for Habitat for Humanity. But plenty of people do, and that’s a good thing.
I’d like to think part of me is changing, and after paying attention to what is going on in the world and what is happening to others, I can start doing something, big or small, to help somebody else. Just like the girl in the video said, if somebody in my family or anybody close to me died, or if a terrible accident happened to them, I would not be able to focus on something like school. Compared to the health and safety of my loved ones, school or my part-time job would be pretty meaningless.
Even if I wanted to, though, I couldn’t help every time someone needed it. Preparing myself to sort out the issues and needs and ways I can help will take more time and education than I have right now. That doesn’t mean I don’t feel anything when there’s news of a disaster like the one in Haiti. It means I can’t stop, do a 180-degree turn, and figure out what more I can or should do besides contribute a few dollars.
I completely agree that we should be helping, no question about it, but why is there so much pressure to do so? There are too many causes and disasters and people who are young, old, sick, or hurt, and it’s overwhelming to think about helping every time someone asks. We can only do what we can do, and it isn't possible to join every effort to save the whales or send school supplies to young girls in Afghanistan or buy mosquito nets for kids in Africa. I can’t do it all. But I will pay attention more to what’s going on, try to put things in some kind of perspective, and do what I can.
I feel as though it is in human nature to react more to something personally touching to us rather than for others. My mom always tells me that I could have the best of friends, but nobody but my parents would be there for me until the very end no matter what. She tells me that others will care about you to an extent, but in the end, it comes down to my parents who will truly be there for me. I can see that applying for all of us. We feel for others deeply, but we cannot embrace their problems as our own very easily.
I had the same question to and I'm glad someone spoke up about this issue. I really believe that us as Americans don't really care about what is happening in other places around the world. I know that sounds really terrible but I really feel this way about this subject. The first thing that came to my mind when this tragedy occurred was how did this happen? The country was already struggling and now they have to deal with this. Going back to the original question, If this were to happen on our soil we as Americans would be in a state of confusion and despair. 300,000 is a lot of people and if that amount were to all die due to a earthquake, this country which we believe is the best in the world wouldn't know what to do from there. Imagine a country like Haiti, very poor and not much power. An earthquake is a natural cause but in a way it seems like this country had been kicked when they were already down.
I had the same question to and I'm glad someone spoke up about this issue. I really believe that us as Americans don't really care about what is happening in other places around the world. I know that sounds really terrible but I really feel this way about this subject. The first thing that came to my mind when this tragedy occurred was how did this happen? The country was already struggling and now they have to deal with this. Going back to the original question, If this were to happen on our soil we as Americans would be in a state of confusion and despair. 300,000 is a lot of people and if that amount were to all die due to a earthquake, this country which we believe is the best in the world wouldn't know what to do from there. Imagine a country like Haiti, very poor and not much power. An earthquake is a natural cause but in a way it seems like this country had been kicked when they were already down.
I do feel as Americans we kind of turned our shoulders to the world. That is why people outside of the United States view us as arrogant. The average American would see this on the news and say it was a shame that happened but go along with there day. When I heard the news I wanted to help but I didn't know what I could do to contribute. If every American would just give one dollar then it would help greatly but it seems like we are to selfish to help some stranger who lost everyone they know but if that happened here it would be completely different. I did do this and its really sad how selfish I can be and other people. So many people are suffering around the world with issues I don't even think about like eating and taking a shower. I've taken so much for granted and people are actually dying around the world and most of the deaths could have been easily prevented. To most of us its survival of the fittest and if we have to stab someone in the back to help ourselves get to the destination we desire is pretty common. As humans though I rarely see compassion, we are so caught up in our own problems, we lose sight of what really matters. People are struggling and we just don't care, we believe it's not our problem because its not on our land. We hope that they will carry themselves out of the hole that there in. But being as powerful as our nation is, we need to use that power to help others who really need the help.
I think for me the answer to the question is that I cannot help and affect every terrible thing that occurs across the planet. Like what was said in class, there is an earthquake and it is on the front page and everyone is sending aid and money. But then the next week there is a different disaster and the earthquake is forgotten. How are we supposed to stop our lives and mourn for a day or a week or a year every time a disaster and deaths occur? We would never lift our heads up from morning. I think this particular situation in Haiti is different just because the immense amount of destruction and death. So it would be plausible to stop and mourn and help or at least take time out of your day to think of the families in need and ones who lost loved ones. But overall maybe just pick a few causes to stop your days for and help.
I agree with how the student in the video clip feels about mourning people dying and how we are all one world and we should care more about other people. But she said it herself, that if someone in her family died then she might take some time off from school to mourn. She didn’t say if 300,000 Americans died she would take time off to mourn. So she is basically contradicting herself when she says if something isn’t directly affecting us we just move on with our lives. Because by saying if someone in her family died, it would be directly affecting her. I would like to know that if 300,000 people who wouldn’t be affecting her life died, would she still take the time off to mourn?
While the fact is really sad, I do believe that most Americans will not respond if some big tragedy occurs somewhere else in the world. People do not bring it into perspective, and they do not respond to it in such a way like we all did on September 11, 2001. We forget what it is like to have that gut-wrenching feeling. I think people need to take a step back and start realizing how much this affects people in our world. Like the girl said, we are all one world and it all should affect us. Whether or not it is in our own state or across the world in Morocco, we should pay attention- because if it were us that lost someone close to us, we would want others to care.
My views are a little conflicted about this video. I agree that maybe people should take more time to think about the reality of 300,000 people dying, and yea try to find ways to help, but then we have to look at this realistically; even though 300,000 people is a huge number of people to die at one time, but people die every day. We cannot really stop to mourn every time someone dies, it is a part of life. I do not mean to sound cynical or make people think that I do not care, but I just think that there are other things that we can do besides mourn, like try to find ways to help, and I feel like even just recognizing that fact that 300,000 is huge number. Like Sam has said before, we do not need to feel guilty about this kind of stuff, we just need to start thinking about it and we cannot ignore it.
I agree with what someone else said on the blog, about how when September 11th happened people mourned because it was mainly 3,000 white people or middle- to upper class minorities who died. When the earthquake in Haiti occurred, sure for a few weeks we could call or text to donate money and celebrities were having fundraisers, but then life went on. On one hand, I feel like the world can not just stand still every time a tragedy happens but on the other hand, when people are mourning a tragic event, when is it too soon to start moving on?
I feel like there were a lot of people with really good intentions about helping the people of Haiti right after the earthquake struck and at first I thought that was a really good idea, like of course, donating food and water and supplies would be a good idea; that was until I listened to Ian talk on Tuesday and realized how important it is for people to start helping the people of Haiti form businesses and trying slowly to rebuild their economy. I am not saying that the world should just completely stop donating and supplying things to Haiti, I am just realizing that a lot of people probably do not even realize how they should be going about properly helping the people of Haiti so that they will be able to help themselves and help rebuild their lives in the future.
So I guess to sum up my thoughts, I believe it is okay for people to mourn, but we need to realize that life moves on. Instead of spending too much time mourning, people should realize the right ways to help and help people get their lives started again.
I cannot picture 300,000 people dead. It does not seem possible to me, when I consider that more died than all of the students at penn state. It would be the same as multiplying the population by 7.5 and then having everyone die. The thought gives me chills, and I cannot imagine living around that much death. I do not know how the people in Haiti are surviving, as many have lost so many loved ones and everything they own. I think that many Americans feel a need to help Haiti by donating food, money, clothing, and other necessities. I also know many churches that are down in Haiti trying to help the refugees. However, I understand the questioner’s point when she asks what that number means to us. Most of the population did donate some material good and then went back to their normal everyday life. However, on one hand we have to question what else can we do? We cannot send the entire world population directly into Haiti and yet is harmful to keep donating material goods directly to the people since it turns them into beggars. In order to rebuild Haiti, people outside of the situation must help take control since the people in Haiti are not emotionally ready to right now. When I think about the World Trade Center I remember the tears in everyone’s eyes and so many people knew someone who worked there. I believe I felt much closer to that disaster as it is honestly because I felt much closer to them. I have been to New York City and I have seen the people living there. I have interacted and talked with them. These were the people who were dying in my dreams. I feel very much removed from Haiti. I understand the need to help a population so poor and so depressed, yet I shamefully admit that I feel a stronger connection to the people living an hour and a half from me. I pictures the people who dies as people who were my like my parents, aunts, uncles, and neighbors. I could relate to so many. I would like to make it clear that I am not suggesting that Americans are better or deserve more than Haitians. That is obviously not the case. I am just pointing out that I feel more connected to Americans because I am one.
The second point I would like to make is about the time the questioner would need for an emotional break if someone in her family died. If one of my sisters or father died I would no doubt take time off to heal emotionally. However, I have never met anyone living in Haiti and I may have a connection to them as a caring human, but I do not have the same emotionally connection that I would for a close friend or family member. I agree in that we cannot forget about Haiti, yet I do not believe that the solution is to stop living our lives.
Immigration should not even be considered a "problem". Our country was founded for people just like those crossing the borders everyday looking for a better, safer life where they earn a decent wage to support their families. What people don't seem to get is that we are a species amongst millions on a planet in space amongst millions and that we are biodegradable- doomed to the carbon cycle. We will literally become dust of the earth when it's all said and done. So where do we get off thinking we can claim, and then put a price on, pieces of a planet that we had no part in creating –and then, on top of it all, decide that only certain people are allowed on it. Sure, if they are murderers or rapists then lets discriminate the shit out of them, but if they're not, if they're just good people trying to find a better place to live, how can we not let them in. How can we do that. We continually allow these ego maniacs to decide everything for everybody. Fuck them, lets kick them out and let these other people, who appreciate every little thing ten times as much into this land that we inhabit. It's just the right thing to do, the difference between going to hell or going to heaven. The white mans so spoiled and so greedy it disgraces me to be one. I want no part in it at all ever, and furthermore, if you make decisions on my behalf that I don't agree with at all, then you are not only failing as a politician, your failing as a human being. If you don't pick the right thing to do over the state of the economy than i'm embarrassed to be of the same species. And if the higher power judges one of based on what the rest of the species does, we're all fucked. Let me bring James Bond in again to come break down some freaking border walls and kick the shit out of border police. Let's grant these people the freedom the deserve just like the rest of us.
I think that students can just go on because it does not affect them directly, and to us college is the most important thing in our lives right now. Of course that would be important. The rest of the world however, may feel that its not important because it’s a dark country. This is the same thing that’s goes on in Africa everyday millions of people die because a small fraction of people want to kill a lot of people. I think that its sad, and I think we should help. How could we stand by and watch 300,000 people and do nothing about it? How could we watch young child not be able to find their parents, and parents unable to find their children and not be affected by it? I think we should want to help, but everyone thinks his or her situation is more important than the next that is the problem. We are so consumed by our selfishness that we are unable to see the real problems in this world. So to us 300,000 is not us, or we think that could never be us; however, just as fast as it was the Haitians it could have been someone in our family who was killed and buried under rubble. Our parents, our children, our friends could have been killed and it would have been the end of the world, but because it was no one that we knew we do not care. Just last week when Red Cross was hosting a blood drive for the people in Haiti I heard someone utter, “oh my god all of our blood is going to the people in Haiti.” I think that if we can donate over 1,000 pints of blood to defeat Michigan why can’t we donate some to help people who desperately need it? This to me is sad because people have not only lost their families; they have also lost their homes and their livelihood. How could we wake up each morning, and not think about it? I admit at first I was a little annoyed of hearing about Haiti, but this actually hit close to home because my niece’s family are Haitian. I thank God that none of her relatives were hurt in the earthquake, but they could have been one of the unlucky people who it did affect. For people in the media to look at them and say it’s their fault because they signed a treaty with the devil is outrageous. How could anyone’s death be the fault of something they did not do something you concocted to explain why they the people who won their freedom from France are doing so badly? If we all thought about just one of the children, one of the parents, one of the friends as our own I highly doubt that we would ignore the situation. Just think it could have been you!
I total agree with you about how a lot of people don’t seem to care about this devastating catastrophe and continue their lives like nothing has happened to me. I think one of the factors that makes people more ignorant or be careless to this tragic disaster is that people can’t find any relationship with their lives. To people, this is just an incident that happened in different country and they think they are not related in anyways. I think this is true for everybody. We are prone to not remember what is happening out there unless we see, feel and experience. We always think that there are other things that be have to worry about to make my life better. We worry about what is around us and what seems to be connected and what would affect my life. So for some of us, just looking what is on the media might touch our emotions and feels for couple of minutes but its very hard for us to think about this incident and do something for the people, who are suffering now.
Sometimes we have a hard time accepting these data and statistic. Come on, 300,000 people died from this single incident. That’s like having all the people from this campus get killed. Sometimes these statistics are numbers are so massive that it is so hard to believe this to be true. Personally I don’t even know how to react to this incident. I mean, I know that there are many people killed and suffering from this but it’s really hard to put myself in their situation. If we understood and felt what is it to be like the people suffering, we wouldn’t be sitting here worrying about our tests. We would be running around to do something to help Haitians.
This is same for every other topic. When we had a lecture about the slaves and coco planting, Most of us felt guilty to eat chocolates for that moment. I was even disgust to see some people eating the second piece of chocolate. But few days later I have found myself enjoying chocolate without even remembering how I felt before. I think it is really hard to share other’s suffering or even remember how they feel. In all, it is almost impossible to put ourselves in their shoes. Then, what are we suppose to do? Do we simply ignore what is happening out there and carry on with our lives? Or do we simply struggle from the guilt everyday? I think very best thing we could do is living our lives up to the full values and use whatever we are given to the people, who are less fortunate than us.
I total agree with you about how a lot of people dont seem to care about this devastating catastrophe and continue their lives like nothing has happened to me. I think one of the factors that makes people more ignorant or be careless to this tragic disaster is that people cant find any relationship with their lives. To people, this is just an incident that happened in different country and they think they are not related in anyways. I think this is true for everybody. We are prone to not remember what is happening out there unless we see, feel and experience. We always think that there are other things that be have to worry about to make my life better. We worry about what is around us and what seems to be connected and what would affect my life. So for some of us, just looking what is on the media might touch our emotions and feels for couple of minutes but its very hard for us to think about this incident and do something for the people, who are suffering now.
I total agree with you about how a lot of people do not seem to care about this devastating catastrophe and continue their lives like nothing has happened to me. I think one of the factors that makes people more ignorant or be careless to this tragic disaster is that people cannot find any relationship with their lives. To people, this is just an incident that happened in different country and they think they are not related in anyways. I think this is true for everybody. We are prone to not remember what is happening out there unless we see, feel and experience. We always think that there are other things that be have to worry about to make my life better. We worry about what is around us and what seems to be connected and what would affect my life. So for some of us, just looking what is on the media might touch our emotions and feels for couple of minutes but its very hard for us to think about this incident and do something for the people, who are suffering now.
Sometimes we have a hard time accepting these data and statistic. Come on, 300,000 people died from this single incident. That’s like having all the people from this campus get killed. Sometimes these statistics are numbers are so massive that it is so hard to believe this to be true. Personally I do not even know how to react to this incident. I mean, I know that there are many people killed and suffering from this but it’s really hard to put myself in their situation. If we understood and felt what is it to be like the people suffering, we would not be sitting here worrying about our tests. We would be running around to do something to help Haitians.
This is same for every other topic. When we had a lecture about the slaves and coco planting, Most of us felt guilty to eat chocolates for that moment. I was even disgust to see some people eating the second piece of chocolate. But few days later I have found myself enjoying chocolate without even remembering how I felt before. I think it is really hard to share other’s suffering or even remember how they feel. In all, it is almost impossible to put ourselves in their shoes. Then, what are we suppose to do? Do we simply ignore what is happening out there and carry on with our lives? Or do we simply struggle from the guilt everyday? I think very best thing we could do is living our lives up to the full values and use whatever we are given to the people, who are less fortunate than us.
I total agree with you about how a lot of people do not seem to care about this devastating catastrophe and continue their lives like nothing has happened to me. I think one of the factors that makes people more ignorant or be careless to this tragic disaster is that people cannot find any relationship with their lives. To people, this is just an incident that happened in different country and they think they are not related in anyways. I think this is true for everybody. We are prone to not remember what is happening out there unless we see, feel and experience. We always think that there are other things that be have to worry about to make my life better. We worry about what is around us and what seems to be connected and what would affect my life. So for some of us, just looking what is on the media might touch our emotions and feels for couple of minutes but its very hard for us to think about this incident and do something for the people, who are suffering now.
This question really does have a lot of answers I think. The first thing I would like to say is that three hundred thousand is a lot of people who died and that is some thing very serious that I honestly feel that a lot of people do not really understand. I also remember that guy in class who really summed it up when he put it in the perspective that 300,000 people died and hour flight trip away from Miami. That really mad me think that this type of natural disaster could really happen anywhere that there is the tectonic plates that move underground. Its just crazy that, this happened and I understand what this young lady is talking about how Haitians are just going on with their life and to say if someone loses a loved one its devastating and you take off a week or two just to get your head straight. In Haiti’s case a great part of the population has losed somebody and I wouldn’t even begin to describe the feelings that the people of Haiti have to get through emotionally.
The fact that I feel that a lot of people form the united states and people from all across the would can just move on after a couple of weeks is that fact that when some one loses a loved one and takes weeks off is because that actually does effect someone directly. Its sad to say but don’t think that a lot of Americans and people from across the world really have direct ties to Haiti that would make them grieve for so long. I don’t think its that fact that people don’t care I just think that it is different for people that didn’t know anyone there and some people would say that this is just life process.
I would also like to believe that we really all in it together and yes it is one world, but you have to remember that this would is split in so many ways that people are not going to just wake up one day and say hey everyone is going to love each other and care about each other, I believe that most human beings as a species are very me centered and tend to just say when natural disasters like something like this happens that most people would just say that yea that terrible what happened and in some type of way they are happy that did not happen to them.
Another thing that I would like to say its always going to be easier for someone to say that we should just move on to someone when its not them who has been affected. They don’t know just like I don’t know about those 300,000 people I don’t know I cant really understand their situation because im not n it and that why people would say we need to move on but yeah people will dwell when they lose their family, life, and way of understanding how the world works.
I understand what this girl is saying about how people really are not taking this number into consideration. Yes this was a horrible thing that happened and yes there were many deaths, but so many people die every day in the United States. If we stopped to think about all of the people that died in the world and make such a huge deal about it then we would not have time for anything. By saying this I do not want to seem like I don’t care about the deaths, but that there is really nothing we can do about it but try to find ways to help.
I completely agree with this post. Whose to say one life is more valuable than another life. I wonder this sometimes when I walk by Old Main and see the American flag at half mast. I wonder what famous person died or if there was a recent catastrophic event. We only put that flag at half mast when something like that happens. But in reality, everyday hundreds of thousands of people starve to death. Civilians are murdered due from the ongoing Genocide in Darfur. American soldiers die fighting for this country. There are tragedies everyday. So why are some deemed more "important" than others? Shouldn't the flag be at half mast all the time?
Well those people over there can’t really afford to take off, they don’t have a home, they don’t have much of anything and it is a constant struggle for them. A lot of us here do want to give back, and one way or another a lot of people are taking the initiative to do so. However as much as we would all love to give them all the time, energy and money we have, a lot of us can’t because it is hard to leave everything we have behind. It is hard for us to ignore the problems, and responsibilities we all face here. As college students, we’re trying to earn a degree in a society that says getting a job afterwards is not guaranteed. And our parents are raising children and trying to put us all through college. The sad fact is that it is almost an everyone from themselves society, and while we are all deeply saddened about events that take away thousands of lives, its hard to drop the ones we love, or our responsibilities. We are terribly saddened by the events that transpired, and have all tried to given back in times if we can, or money as well, and that is the most we are able to do and still follow our responsibilities to ourselves and the ones we love.
I do feel like a lot of people did help out in the beginning. This only really happened because there was so much news coverage and so many groups were getting involved. However, this eventually changed when the news coverage slowed down and people began to forget about what happened. I have to admit I even forgot about it, too. One of my friends is actually involved with Project Haiti and she tries to do as much as she can. This is something that I feel like I should have done.
I remember reading an article maybe about a month ago about students support on Haiti. It was about how effort was slowly decreasing, while some groups were staying strong, including Project Haiti. Even though there was hardly any news coverage about it, groups were still involved. If only more groups were. It makes me think that I still can get involved and so can everyone else who has no helped at all really. If you think about it, there is still so much damage left and so many people left who need our help. I know right now that I am saying this and most likely I am probably going to forget about it with classes and getting ready for break, which is what is on everyone’s mind, but what if we really made it happen. We might think that just one person might not be able to help, but it just really takes one person. It starts with one person and then it turns into a huge group effort.
Imagine an earthquake hitting here, we would definitely give it more attention. This is like this because it is our home and we feel protective of it. Now imagine this from the people of Haiti’s point of view. They are thinking the same thing. Now think about how you would want help getting back to how everything was.
I remember when the earthquake in Haiti first hit. I was watching the news and all of a sudden something comes on about the biggest earthquake that hit and it was in Haiti. For a second, I thought how could have this happened. I thought about all of the people that lost their lives, how all of their buildings collapsed, and how so many people would not have anywhere to live anymore. After that I thought what I could do to help. However, I really did not do anything and because of this, I feel like I should have done more. The only thing that I helped with was donating in class whenever we did. I felt that this did go to some kind of change, but I could have done more.
To the 300000 people who died, i guess in reality people here in america or anywhere else do feel not affected for it like they do with loved ones but i get the feeling of guilt because i dont know what to do or feel i cant do anything about it and i just move on with my life. I was sad about it of course, but i didnt really cry – its like me saying "oh it happened, that is sad, and i just move on with my life" i guess we feel that doesnt really effect us cause we dont feel the pain and suffering ourselves and we feel that it might never happen to us. People in haiti gone through some many bad and suffering experiences that i myself cant imagine, but since they are there and we are here, i guess we cant feel so much sympathy as those who experience the pain there.
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I think she makes a really interesting point because if something as devastating as the earthquake in Haiti happened in the United States we would most certainly stop and think and have some time to mourn. I am not quite sure if anything like this occurred after 9/11 or not but she really makes a good point that when it is people we know we stop and mourn their passing but when it is somewhere that we feel removed from, especially because we don’t necessarily know them first hand, we kind of brush it off. This kind of goes along with the whole white guilt idea, we feel bad about it but don’t think there is anything we can do. When we act like this we are dehumanizing people and making it seem like they are not worth our time.
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This is very interesting and true. I’ve always thought about this. When the tsunami hit in India, or whenever there is some type of disaster, we report the story for a couple days and then move onto another issue. When 9/11 happened, something that affected a lot of the people in the United States, it was on the news for months. It is interesting how we as a society do not sympathize as much when we are not directly involved with the situation. When we are removed, we say “oh that is awful” and then move on with our lives.
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That’s definitely an interesting thought, the problem with that is though, think about it, if every time someone died, or a few people died, or a large group of people died, if we all just stopped what we were doing for even a week, what good would that do? It is definitely very devastating and it sucks to deal with death, especially if it is someone who affected you personally, but life goes on and you have to also. If everyone just stopped what they were doing for some period of time, it would drastically affect our lives MORE than the death or deaths would affect our lives. Would you HONESTLY take off an entire month from school or work, let alone the rest of the year, if someone in your family died? There’s just things in life that can’t be avoided or put on hold for such a long period of time. Of course it would be very upsetting and would take a lot of time to cope with and get used to, but that doesn’t mean that you should stop living yourself. I completely agree that we have to move on. Of course we should be doing everything we can to help the people in Haiti, which there are people over there helping where necessary. I don’t think the point was that we should just forget about it and move on, I think the point was more that you take some time out of your day to mourn, but you also do the things in your life that need to be done. I know that when my grandfather died when I was in high school, I took a day or two off of school to mourn and go to his funeral and everything, but after that I went back to school, I took my tests, I did my homework, because if I didn’t, then I probably wouldn’t be here at Penn State now. You can’t just stop life and put everything at a halt or else the world wouldn’t change and things wouldn’t get better. We’d just be living in a world full of sad, mourning people waiting for the next person to die and mourn to. I understand where you’re coming from, it’s sad to think that after such a devastating event to happen, that people can just go on with their daily lives, it seems like people don’t care, but I’m sure they do. No one can hear about such a horrible disaster and not even care a little bit, there are just some things that need more attention than others. For some people, the most they can do is donate money. You do what you can, and continue on with your life, tragic events like this are always in the back of your mind. It’s not that people are moving on and just forgetting about it, they’re just moving forward and continuing on with life.
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This is a very sensitive topic to talk about because it was one of the greatest disasters in the modern world were over 300,000 people perished and it is sad that people did just move on. With that said I have done my fair share of helping without physically going down to Haiti and getting my hands dirty and I feel like some people still feel like I can do more. I honestly do not know what else to do besides give money or donate canned goods or old clothing to help them out. What ive done, in my eyes in plenty to help at least 5 people put some food in their stomach or have one kid able to walk on the ground without rocks getting stuck in his feet. The is a real big problem down there and its going to take years to recover, but people have to remember we have lives to live as well and if we stop living ours to help them then where does that leave us? It’s a terrible situation and you want to help as much as possible but some people don’t have the means to continuously help like other may.
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I completely agree with this student that this is a very important question, why should we move on with our lives when 300,000 people die versus when for example, my relative dies, I can take days off to mourn? So in my opinion, it all comes down to the issue of self-centeredness like Sam mentioned in class. We are by nature, selfish, and when it comes to issues like who do I save if I can only choose myself or someone else, a stranger, or even a close friend or relative, in the end, mostly likely, I would still choose me. It is shocking to hear that the amount of people who died in Haiti, 100 times more than the people who died in 911. The reactions of the two events are obviously different. But I think even though people tend to be self-centered, still through deeper understanding and exposures, we can become more self-less and concern more about others.
For instance, taking soc119 is already one way for us to increase our exposure of social and ethnic issues around the world. Some of us may become more selfish, whereas, many will become more selfless and have more concerns for others who are not living as well as us. Personally, I think taking soc119 has definitely increased my exposure to the problems and happening around the world and also inequalities among different races. During class on Tuesday when Matt (is his name Matt?) came to speak it was really eye-opening of how Haiti really is after the earthquake. I think it was more personal and it felt closer and I cared more. So I think why 300,000 people dying we are not reacting to it as much has to do with the physical distance on one point. Also, I felt that I wanted to care more about the earthquake in Haiti, but I don’t watch TV and I’ve been busy with all the other things in my life, so it sort of just pushed me forward with my life. I think if we were to have a moment of silence everyday for Haiti, then I would think about it more and wanted to get involved with helping more. Also, I think it might have something to do with race as well. When the earthquake happened in China, I was worried to death, and I watched news every hour if not every day. So why am I not doing the same thing for Haiti? This is a question that I ask myself. Do I not care as much if the people don’t look like me?
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I think that people just move on with their life’s and forget about things like this, because maybe they feel there isn’t anything they can do. Sometimes people may feel too busy with their lives like with all the tragedies we have every year people may just feel it’s not possible to save everyone. So they just give up. I think that it is worth every effort to try to save as many life’s as possible, even if you think it can’t be done. It is definitely worth the try and I think if we had more helping hands we would be able to save more lives at a time.
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I completely get what the person in the video is saying, it is not until anything hits us personally that we actually get up and do something about it. Haiti is a very small country and its impact on the world has been minimum, what I'm trying to say is that the situation would not have been the same if it was a country great significance like say the United States of America or the United Kingdom or Japan for that matter. If a natural disaster like the one in Haiti would have occurred in any of the major cities around the world, I think that people would have reacted differently to the same event.
Not that Haiti is an insignificant country but its just that the problems that Haiti's having does not impact the people around the world personally. Most of the people around the world do not have any connection with Haiti may it be economically or personally, it does not really affect the people in their day-to-day life.As cruel as this may sound this is how the world is, most of the people would not bother to help the people that are under distress, even if they have to just sacrifice a very small part of their life. It is very common for a person to think how his small contribution is going to help to rebuild the life of some person in a different country.But what people fail to understand is that how a small part of their income or time could make a big difference in someone else's life.
This does not mean that people do not empathize for them, by just feeling sorry, is really not going to help them in Haiti. For example, does not really affect me personally, it has not really affected my day to day life, so i cant I can’t stop going to class to go there and help, I can’t donate large amounts of money. It was great to have Sam collect money for this, as this gave a lot of opportunity to a lot of people in class, who wanted to donate money, but were quite lazy to use any of the other sources.
I really dont know if the money that i have sent is really gonna make a difference there, but I think i have done what i could in my present circumstances to help them. Hopefully the money gets to them and it benefits them.
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This girl brings up a very interesting point here and I have a couple different viewpoints on it. First, let me start by saying that there are people in the world that are very self-centered and unwilling to help other individuals. There are those that care more about themselves and don't even care a little bit when they hear that terrible events have happened that killed thousands. Some people see it as though if it doesn't directly affect there lives than why should they care. However, there are tons of people out there who take time to think about those individuals who are suffering and those that just lost loved ones. I, personally, know of individuals who went down to New Orleans to lend a helping hand after Hurricane Katrina destroyed everything in its path. Even if someone just takes time out of their day to think about those lives that were lost and perhaps say a prayer for them I think that says a least a little something and shows they do care about others. I know when I hear about a tragic event like the earthquake that hit Haiti and killed so many innocent people, I do feel extremely sad and often do something such as take a moment of silence and pray for them but I know there is often more I wish I could do. However, just because I can not physically be there to help out and make things better doesn't mean that I don't think about something like when 300,000 innocent lives are taken. Like I said before, it's true that some people don't even think twice about news like that upon hearing it and go on doing whatever it is they were doing at the time because they just don't let it affect them. However, while we should try to help others as much as possible and at the very least take a moment of silence for them I can see how we wouldn't let that affect us from taking tests and stuff. Things like that should affect us in some way even if it's just in a small way but at the same time we often don't let it affect our daily duties and such because they are not individuals who we know. If a mother, father, relative, or friend dies than there is a personal connection there an feelings and emotions that are rooted deep in a person that make it harder to just forget about or go on with our daily routine. I don't necessarily think though that it makes us bad people for letting the death of a loved one affect us more than the death of others. However, as stated before I think there should be at least some emotion felt upon hearing news like that.
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This is very interesting it is crazy how we humans really don't care about disasters unless we are directly affected by them. The normal response is to just be like, "oh that sucks, I hope things get better" I even do this a lot. Its not even that I don't give a fuck its just that I also have a life and I also have my own well being to worry about on a daily basis. I know that may sound really selfish but its the truth, if I ever want to be in a position to help other people later in my life then I need to do work and get mine. I mean I am all for helping people and giving to other but I feel like I need to get my shit straight first. I want to be in a good position to help people first instead of being some broke ass, bum ass, college student who really can't really help drastically.
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It has been said, “That if you do the crime, you must pay the time.” It has also been said that no one should be let off the hook for any crime regardless of how big or small. Bottom line if someone does something wrong they should have to pay for it for the rest of their lives. However, I have always wondered, for those who say these things, have they ever really place themselves in a criminal’s shoes? Have they ever tried to understand or even listen to the situation that the criminal was in? I’m sure many people would answer no to these questions. They would more than likely feel like “why should I even tried to understand?” “There is nothing to understand.” “They committed a crime and should be put away for it.” Now I agree with these statements to a certain degree. I mean people should be punished for their crimes regardless of size, but that does not mean that we as society should throw them away because they have made a mistake.
Now for most of us, I know the number one question that keeps your mind going. You would say, well what if that person murdered someone, should we show compassion and sympathy for them? The answer to that question is yes. I’m sure many people will be surprised to this answer, but after reading a letter from an inmate that my Soc 119 teacher knows, you would have to consider why I say yes. I know that this person has killed someone. Yes he has taken someone from their family. So this would make society think that he had or has no compassion or sympathy for anyone else. However, reading the letter would give everyone whoever felt that criminals have no feelings a different perspective or I would hope so.
In the letter the inmate talks about how even hardcore souls can place their hatred for one another to the side just so that they help one another. He explains how small gestures towards one another can be so special. The situation the man spoke of had me thinking how could this even occur? I always thought that criminals who committed murder were cold hearted serpents who only saw their pain and suffering. I thought they committed the crimes they did because they wanted society or specific people to feel the pain that they felt. I never even considered that they feel more than that. They hurt just the way those of us who have committed crimes do. They shed tears, and long for love as well as acceptance just like the rest of us.
I mean these men have to pay for more than just the life they took or the time they will spend in prison. These men have to live with people looking at them sideways, people always being afraid of them, never ever having another real shot at life. They are in prison trying to become better people, but we as a society won’t even give them a chance. I could not even imagine how that feels. I’m forever grateful for this letter and the sentimental value it hold. I am thankful for the lesson it contains.
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Additional Blog#1
When we see something happen and learn of something that happened we are more likely to walk away from it because it did affect us directly. The reason we think this fine is because we think to ourselves, what can I do? I did not know this person so why should I even be concerned. Furthermore, they would go as far as to say that hey it wasn’t me so I’m taking responsibility.
What most people fail to realize is that no one in this world is immune to the trials and tribulations of life. Yet, we all act as if we don’t have direct connection to us then our lives goes on. The problem is that no one wants to take responsibility for anything. I mean these are human beings that need our help. We should not care if affects us directly or not. I am pretty sure that if something did happen to us individually we want help from anyone, so let us return the favor and start to care about things that happen outside of our little worlds.
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All people are not the same. there are some people who are diagnosed with clinical depression because they feed into all the mishaps in the world. people dying, killing each other etc. lets not forget all the natural disasters that are occurring all over the worlds. It seem abnormal for someone to be so concerned about what is going on in the world today to the point they are depressed.
Most people are only concerned when it effects he/she directly. If your mother/father/sister/brother/aunt/grandfather, etc were killed in Iraq or the world trade center bombing, your reaction would be different. it is okay to feel sad for a while and thoughts of it happening to you, one of your family members or friends will occur but there is only so much time you can spend thinking about people you do not know.
I experienced this same feeling when the earthquake happened in Haiti or seeing documentaries about the genocide in Dalfur. I could not really understand if I was just being selfish or just plain ignorant. Thoughts of my people in my country of birth ( Liberia) suddenly rushed into my head. and i start thinking "what about my people in Liberia?" We have been recovering from a 14 year war and a corrupt political system, why are people not sending us money? And what are these funds to Haiti are receiving doing for them? thoughts kept going..running through my head. I could not shake this feeling of complete ignorance. i felt sorry for Haiti, being that they were the poorest country in the world, and now to add insult to injury they have to rebuild their country all over again. It bothered me, but not to the same extent as it would if my country was in the same position.
When you loose somebody you are close to , a part of your life is missing. you must go everyday without seeing that person and feel a sense of resentment. otherwise..we do not care. Thats the real problem. If something isn't effecting us, we are far more likely to not care about it as much as we should. I think that when we hear about 300,000 people dieing and compare that to the 3,000 that died on September 11, we really need to consider the extent of this crisis. If a crisis like what happened in Haiti, happened in New York City, how different would it be. The entire state, and everyone who has relatives that live in New York would be working to help, because it effects them. People from other states would help because it is fellow Americans, but not to the extent that people who are personally by the tragedy would.
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I think it is hard to say that people “don’t care” about what happened in Haiti, because you do not know the thoughts that go through people’s minds. Of course I care that these people’s lives have been absolutely turned upside by this terrible natural disaster, but short of flying to Haiti to lend a helping hand, I do not believe there is all that much that I could do that would actually make a difference. Yeah, I could donate money, and I did put in some money when Sam was collecting it, but do we really know where the money is going? Of course I know Sam would not steal our money, I am not trying to imply that, but is the money that anyone donates really making a huge difference in the relief effort? I obviously have not been to Haiti so I am just pulling this stuff out of the air, so call me naïve. If you are a student at Penn State, chances are you have had a pretty damn good life. That being said, it is hard for many people to open their eyes to what is actually going on down there. Most of us have not seen extreme poverty, we have not lived it, we have not experienced it. We cannot relate in any way, shape or form to what is going on in Haiti so it is hard to emotionally grieve. Of course, anyone with any human compassion will stare at the television while thinking how terrible things are and how horrendous those conditions are and how tragic it is that so many people are displaced, lost, or dead, but then the program ends and the news coverage is halted. Then we go do our homework, cook dinner, call our parents and we forget what those Haitians can never forget. I cannot mourn someone who I never knew, but I can mourn the situation. And I have done that, as I am sure many others did as well, but considering my life was not altered by the earthquake, I will inevitably forget because in my little world, I have other things to do. That sounds really harsh and ignorant, but my life goes on, and believe me I know how lucky I am that my life goes on happily.
Now if a family member died, like one of my parents, then I would mourn and my every thought would be consumed with that. My mother, in particular, is my best friend, she is someone I can count on no matter what, and if I did not have her my life would be 100% different. That would impact me, that would change my everyday routine, that would change my life. I think that is a main reason why people do not seem to “care” about over 300,000 people dying, because our lives go on unchanged.
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Our society conditions us to be a self-centered country and only care about our own lives and how we can benefit our lives for the better. If we do not feel any personal connection to a disaster or death then we do not take the time to mourn. I honestly believe that, especially in college, people are not educated on what happened in Haiti. They do not know how many people died, who died or what has happened to them since the disaster. Especially since this disaster did not occur in our own country, it is difficult for people to try to connect and take time away from their “busy lives” to help other people who they have never even met before. I live in New York and know many people who were affected by 9/11 and we still discuss it on a regular basis, yet I do not know anybody affected by the New Orleans hurricane and never talk about that. Within our own country we cannot even have enough compassion to care, so how are we expected to care about other countries.
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Dealing and coping with death is a reality of life that everyone has to go through at some point. The tragedy in Haiti was absolutely devastating and 300,000 people lost is a tremendous number. But do I really need to answer the question of why it is acceptable to take some time off if an immediate family member died as opposed to all of these people abroad? Unless you personally knew someone, or multiple people, who died in Haiti, this tragedy will simply not have the same emotional toll it will bear on you if say, your mother or father died.
Please keep in mind that I am not at all saying that the lives in Haiti mean less than someone’s loved one here in the United States. But it is pretty obvious that we will be much more affected by a family member dying than thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of people dying overseas who we have never made contact with. Any help that you feel necessary to provide is very grateful. But we absolutely need to move on with our lives and not mourn these deaths by “taking off” for days or even weeks at a time. This practice, though, would be acceptable if an immediate family member were to die.
As I have said, death is a part of life that happens every second. According to the U.S. Census in 2010, a little over 150,000 people die a day worldwide. So in just two days, 300,000 people die worldwide, which is the equivalent of the Haiti death toll. And yet we do not sit around, mourning the loss of all of these lives each and every day. The Haiti earthquake was indeed more tragic due to the massive loss of people of all ages in such a small area. The point I am making is that it is, and should be, perfectly acceptable to move on with our daily lives after tragedies occur. If you feel the need to provide help, that is great. But not everyone feels that need, and it should be up to each individual whether or not they want to put the time and resources into helping those people abroad.
As for what we should do to help, this is really a personal choice. Some give just a little bit of money toward a nonprofit on site. Others feel the need to travel to Haiti and see what they can do to help. Whatever the amount of help someone gives, if any at all, is something each person should deal with on their own personal level. This also implies that no one should ridicule others for not doing anything to reach out and help these people. If you want to do something to help, go for it, but please do not yell at others if they choose to do nothing. They may be spending their time and money helping others closer to them or feeding their own family.
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I think this is an interesting question and one that should be asked about many tragedies, not just the one in Haiti. I was actually thinking about this when September 11th was brought up in lecture. Although we paid much more attention to September 11th than we did to the tragedy in Haiti, I felt that many parts of America forgot about September 11th soon after it happened. I don't know if forgot is the right word.. it's just that it was put on the back burner and lost it's intense focus in people's lives and conversations. I think it is just too easy to get caught up in our own lives and stop caring about something that we are not directly seeing. Although I was in Pennsylvania at the time the towers were hit, which is fairly close compared to other areas of our country, I didn't feel the direct affects of the event. No one that I knew was involved or even near any of the crashes, so it was easy for me to remove it from my thoughts. I think the only thing that kept September 11th in the minds of a lot of American's was the fear that something like that could happen here and that it may happen again. I guess I'm just saying that yes, I agree, we focused our attention much more intensely on September 11th than we did on the earthquake in Haiti, but I think September 11th escaped the minds of the majority of American's soon after it happened. I also thought that little attention was on Hurricane Katrina and the tragedy in New Orleans. It was in the news for a few weeks after it happened, but many families suffered the affects for a substantial amount of time after that.. long after it was constantly broadcasted in the news. And since this didn't affect the majority of American's and was far from where we live, we quickly forgot. And that happened to "our" people. This isn't an issue just about Haiti or "other countries" either. It is the same situation when it come to racism and simply not understanding other people. There are tragedies everyday, all around the world, and sometimes even next door. It is easy to push it out of our minds because it is difficult to think about. It is important to acknowledge that there are people everywhere that are worse off than us.. but it is also more efficient to find a tragedy that means something to you enough that you want to create change and do something about it. I understand what this girl is saying and I agree that it is tragic that we don't pay attention to this event more and want to help.. but it is just so easy to get caught up in our lives and it's very intimidating when you don't know how to help or where to even start.
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I think that most people naturally feel that those types of things do not affect them because they are unable to see the connections clearly. That makes everything less personal and with humans being selfish instinctively, it is not always someone’s best interest to help out a cause as far away as Haiti. Of course if it is our own family members or people that we are close to we will act upon it differently. If people felt like they would actually make a difference or be significant in some way, then more people would take action. Due to feelings of unimportance, it is crucial for people like Ian from class to come and talk to us about how you can actually make a difference. Otherwise, people—especially students and others who are very involved in their surroundings (i.e. very engaged in their careers) do not see the need or find the time to help with larger issues. People pretty much take on an “Oh, they will handle that; they don’t need me too” mentality. Until people feel needed, they won’t really respond. It might make us feel like we are “bad people” or extremely selfish when we realize that we turn our backs on these issues on a daily basis, but only momentarily. Then, we go right back to what we were doing as if nothing happened. The guilt doesn’t last long until we talk about it. And when we stop talking about it, it vanishes again.
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This girl brings up a very interesting point. Definitely something I have thought about but have not directly responded to. I feel like tests will always be the most important thing, which is kind of messed up. A test will never be cancelled for any reason. At least as far as I know. But that is beside the point. We all react to things differently. If something huge in this country happened and 300,000 people died. I don’t know how I would react. I couldn’t tell you. If it were someone close tome… who knows. But I do not think it is that we don’t care…
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I don’t think that people should just move on. I just think that people don’t care as much because it does not affect people directly. It is crazy though. Just because it doesn’t affect us directly people act like nothing ever happened. Some people do not even think about it. It is crazy how some people do not even know about it. I remember talking to my friend and being like “Did you heard about what happened in Haiti?” and they responded with “No, what happened?” I could not believe that some people did not even know what happened. It is a perfect example of egocentrism. People in this country are so oblivious to what happens around us. And to be honest I used to be one of them. Before I took Sam’s class I was oblivious to pretty much everything that he brought up in class. I am so happy that I took his class because I am so much more knowledgeable about what is going on around me. Before I took this class I did not even know what the war was fought about. I did not know the hardships that native Americans go through day to day. I did not know about the Haitians and what they go through. This class has truly opened my eyes and I am thankful that I took this class.
About what is going on in Haiti. I feel very bad for what they have to live with and what they have to go through. Every chance I get to help them I donate money. I wish that I could go there and do something. But in cases like this I feel helpless. Even with problems with racism I do not know what I can do. I want to help and I want to make a change but how can I make a change when everyone around me does not want to change the way that they think. People do not care. People are okay with being racist. In fact some people like being racist and they like the fact that they are white and they do not care that other people are discriminated against. I want to be able to change the views of other people but sometimes I feel like one person can not do anything to change any thing.
I grew up in a very diverse environment and I wish that people could see the way that I see and feel the way that I feel. However it is not that easy and it will never be that easy. I hope that one day everyone will be equal and everyone will be happy. I hope this will happen someday.
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This is a great question. Sam definitely touched on this in the class about Haiti and I think it really hit home for me when he related it to September 11th. When September 11th happened it was devastating for everyone in the country and the entire world paid attention to how we recovered for a very long time. To think that 300,000 people died in Haiti because of a natural disaster is incomprehensible. I cannot imagine if something like that happened to the United States and everyone else around the world pretty much forgot about it after a few weeks. Haiti deserves all the help and attention they can get and I really hope they can somehow pull themselves out of this terrible situation.
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I have to admit that I am one of those people who don’t really feel affected by news of natural disasters in other parts of the world. Problems somewhere else don’t seem real and don’t put speed bumps in my everyday life. I know I shouldn’t be self-absorbed, especially considering the fact that my parents adopted six of my brothers and sisters when they were orphans in the Philippines. There are ten of us total, and we all grew up thinking our family was normal. My parents in fact have said they did not plan to adopt, but when they were overseas and saw the huge need, they had an “aha moment” and went with it. They experienced a social issue up close and personal and chose a way to do what they could about it. People come face-to-face with social issues at different times and in unexpected ways. Not everyone adopts six kids just because they want to make life better for orphans, and not everyone sends money to Haiti or builds houses for Habitat for Humanity. But plenty of people do, and that’s a good thing.
I’d like to think part of me is changing, and after paying attention to what is going on in the world and what is happening to others, I can start doing something, big or small, to help somebody else. Just like the girl in the video said, if somebody in my family or anybody close to me died, or if a terrible accident happened to them, I would not be able to focus on something like school. Compared to the health and safety of my loved ones, school or my part-time job would be pretty meaningless.
Even if I wanted to, though, I couldn’t help every time someone needed it. Preparing myself to sort out the issues and needs and ways I can help will take more time and education than I have right now. That doesn’t mean I don’t feel anything when there’s news of a disaster like the one in Haiti. It means I can’t stop, do a 180-degree turn, and figure out what more I can or should do besides contribute a few dollars.
I completely agree that we should be helping, no question about it, but why is there so much pressure to do so? There are too many causes and disasters and people who are young, old, sick, or hurt, and it’s overwhelming to think about helping every time someone asks. We can only do what we can do, and it isn't possible to join every effort to save the whales or send school supplies to young girls in Afghanistan or buy mosquito nets for kids in Africa. I can’t do it all. But I will pay attention more to what’s going on, try to put things in some kind of perspective, and do what I can.
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I feel as though it is in human nature to react more to something personally touching to us rather than for others. My mom always tells me that I could have the best of friends, but nobody but my parents would be there for me until the very end no matter what. She tells me that others will care about you to an extent, but in the end, it comes down to my parents who will truly be there for me. I can see that applying for all of us. We feel for others deeply, but we cannot embrace their problems as our own very easily.
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I had the same question to and I'm glad someone spoke up about this issue. I really believe that us as Americans don't really care about what is happening in other places around the world. I know that sounds really terrible but I really feel this way about this subject. The first thing that came to my mind when this tragedy occurred was how did this happen? The country was already struggling and now they have to deal with this. Going back to the original question, If this were to happen on our soil we as Americans would be in a state of confusion and despair. 300,000 is a lot of people and if that amount were to all die due to a earthquake, this country which we believe is the best in the world wouldn't know what to do from there. Imagine a country like Haiti, very poor and not much power. An earthquake is a natural cause but in a way it seems like this country had been kicked when they were already down.
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I had the same question to and I'm glad someone spoke up about this issue. I really believe that us as Americans don't really care about what is happening in other places around the world. I know that sounds really terrible but I really feel this way about this subject. The first thing that came to my mind when this tragedy occurred was how did this happen? The country was already struggling and now they have to deal with this. Going back to the original question, If this were to happen on our soil we as Americans would be in a state of confusion and despair. 300,000 is a lot of people and if that amount were to all die due to a earthquake, this country which we believe is the best in the world wouldn't know what to do from there. Imagine a country like Haiti, very poor and not much power. An earthquake is a natural cause but in a way it seems like this country had been kicked when they were already down.
I do feel as Americans we kind of turned our shoulders to the world. That is why people outside of the United States view us as arrogant. The average American would see this on the news and say it was a shame that happened but go along with there day. When I heard the news I wanted to help but I didn't know what I could do to contribute. If every American would just give one dollar then it would help greatly but it seems like we are to selfish to help some stranger who lost everyone they know but if that happened here it would be completely different. I did do this and its really sad how selfish I can be and other people. So many people are suffering around the world with issues I don't even think about like eating and taking a shower. I've taken so much for granted and people are actually dying around the world and most of the deaths could have been easily prevented. To most of us its survival of the fittest and if we have to stab someone in the back to help ourselves get to the destination we desire is pretty common. As humans though I rarely see compassion, we are so caught up in our own problems, we lose sight of what really matters. People are struggling and we just don't care, we believe it's not our problem because its not on our land. We hope that they will carry themselves out of the hole that there in. But being as powerful as our nation is, we need to use that power to help others who really need the help.
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I think for me the answer to the question is that I cannot help and affect every terrible thing that occurs across the planet. Like what was said in class, there is an earthquake and it is on the front page and everyone is sending aid and money. But then the next week there is a different disaster and the earthquake is forgotten. How are we supposed to stop our lives and mourn for a day or a week or a year every time a disaster and deaths occur? We would never lift our heads up from morning. I think this particular situation in Haiti is different just because the immense amount of destruction and death. So it would be plausible to stop and mourn and help or at least take time out of your day to think of the families in need and ones who lost loved ones. But overall maybe just pick a few causes to stop your days for and help.
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I agree with how the student in the video clip feels about mourning people dying and how we are all one world and we should care more about other people. But she said it herself, that if someone in her family died then she might take some time off from school to mourn. She didn’t say if 300,000 Americans died she would take time off to mourn. So she is basically contradicting herself when she says if something isn’t directly affecting us we just move on with our lives. Because by saying if someone in her family died, it would be directly affecting her. I would like to know that if 300,000 people who wouldn’t be affecting her life died, would she still take the time off to mourn?
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While the fact is really sad, I do believe that most Americans will not respond if some big tragedy occurs somewhere else in the world. People do not bring it into perspective, and they do not respond to it in such a way like we all did on September 11, 2001. We forget what it is like to have that gut-wrenching feeling. I think people need to take a step back and start realizing how much this affects people in our world. Like the girl said, we are all one world and it all should affect us. Whether or not it is in our own state or across the world in Morocco, we should pay attention- because if it were us that lost someone close to us, we would want others to care.
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My views are a little conflicted about this video. I agree that maybe people should take more time to think about the reality of 300,000 people dying, and yea try to find ways to help, but then we have to look at this realistically; even though 300,000 people is a huge number of people to die at one time, but people die every day. We cannot really stop to mourn every time someone dies, it is a part of life. I do not mean to sound cynical or make people think that I do not care, but I just think that there are other things that we can do besides mourn, like try to find ways to help, and I feel like even just recognizing that fact that 300,000 is huge number. Like Sam has said before, we do not need to feel guilty about this kind of stuff, we just need to start thinking about it and we cannot ignore it.
I agree with what someone else said on the blog, about how when September 11th happened people mourned because it was mainly 3,000 white people or middle- to upper class minorities who died. When the earthquake in Haiti occurred, sure for a few weeks we could call or text to donate money and celebrities were having fundraisers, but then life went on. On one hand, I feel like the world can not just stand still every time a tragedy happens but on the other hand, when people are mourning a tragic event, when is it too soon to start moving on?
I feel like there were a lot of people with really good intentions about helping the people of Haiti right after the earthquake struck and at first I thought that was a really good idea, like of course, donating food and water and supplies would be a good idea; that was until I listened to Ian talk on Tuesday and realized how important it is for people to start helping the people of Haiti form businesses and trying slowly to rebuild their economy. I am not saying that the world should just completely stop donating and supplying things to Haiti, I am just realizing that a lot of people probably do not even realize how they should be going about properly helping the people of Haiti so that they will be able to help themselves and help rebuild their lives in the future.
So I guess to sum up my thoughts, I believe it is okay for people to mourn, but we need to realize that life moves on. Instead of spending too much time mourning, people should realize the right ways to help and help people get their lives started again.
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I cannot picture 300,000 people dead. It does not seem possible to me, when I consider that more died than all of the students at penn state. It would be the same as multiplying the population by 7.5 and then having everyone die. The thought gives me chills, and I cannot imagine living around that much death. I do not know how the people in Haiti are surviving, as many have lost so many loved ones and everything they own. I think that many Americans feel a need to help Haiti by donating food, money, clothing, and other necessities. I also know many churches that are down in Haiti trying to help the refugees. However, I understand the questioner’s point when she asks what that number means to us. Most of the population did donate some material good and then went back to their normal everyday life. However, on one hand we have to question what else can we do? We cannot send the entire world population directly into Haiti and yet is harmful to keep donating material goods directly to the people since it turns them into beggars. In order to rebuild Haiti, people outside of the situation must help take control since the people in Haiti are not emotionally ready to right now. When I think about the World Trade Center I remember the tears in everyone’s eyes and so many people knew someone who worked there. I believe I felt much closer to that disaster as it is honestly because I felt much closer to them. I have been to New York City and I have seen the people living there. I have interacted and talked with them. These were the people who were dying in my dreams. I feel very much removed from Haiti. I understand the need to help a population so poor and so depressed, yet I shamefully admit that I feel a stronger connection to the people living an hour and a half from me. I pictures the people who dies as people who were my like my parents, aunts, uncles, and neighbors. I could relate to so many. I would like to make it clear that I am not suggesting that Americans are better or deserve more than Haitians. That is obviously not the case. I am just pointing out that I feel more connected to Americans because I am one.
The second point I would like to make is about the time the questioner would need for an emotional break if someone in her family died. If one of my sisters or father died I would no doubt take time off to heal emotionally. However, I have never met anyone living in Haiti and I may have a connection to them as a caring human, but I do not have the same emotionally connection that I would for a close friend or family member. I agree in that we cannot forget about Haiti, yet I do not believe that the solution is to stop living our lives.
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Immigration should not even be considered a "problem". Our country was founded for people just like those crossing the borders everyday looking for a better, safer life where they earn a decent wage to support their families. What people don't seem to get is that we are a species amongst millions on a planet in space amongst millions and that we are biodegradable- doomed to the carbon cycle. We will literally become dust of the earth when it's all said and done. So where do we get off thinking we can claim, and then put a price on, pieces of a planet that we had no part in creating –and then, on top of it all, decide that only certain people are allowed on it. Sure, if they are murderers or rapists then lets discriminate the shit out of them, but if they're not, if they're just good people trying to find a better place to live, how can we not let them in. How can we do that. We continually allow these ego maniacs to decide everything for everybody. Fuck them, lets kick them out and let these other people, who appreciate every little thing ten times as much into this land that we inhabit. It's just the right thing to do, the difference between going to hell or going to heaven. The white mans so spoiled and so greedy it disgraces me to be one. I want no part in it at all ever, and furthermore, if you make decisions on my behalf that I don't agree with at all, then you are not only failing as a politician, your failing as a human being. If you don't pick the right thing to do over the state of the economy than i'm embarrassed to be of the same species. And if the higher power judges one of based on what the rest of the species does, we're all fucked. Let me bring James Bond in again to come break down some freaking border walls and kick the shit out of border police. Let's grant these people the freedom the deserve just like the rest of us.
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I think that students can just go on because it does not affect them directly, and to us college is the most important thing in our lives right now. Of course that would be important. The rest of the world however, may feel that its not important because it’s a dark country. This is the same thing that’s goes on in Africa everyday millions of people die because a small fraction of people want to kill a lot of people. I think that its sad, and I think we should help. How could we stand by and watch 300,000 people and do nothing about it? How could we watch young child not be able to find their parents, and parents unable to find their children and not be affected by it? I think we should want to help, but everyone thinks his or her situation is more important than the next that is the problem. We are so consumed by our selfishness that we are unable to see the real problems in this world. So to us 300,000 is not us, or we think that could never be us; however, just as fast as it was the Haitians it could have been someone in our family who was killed and buried under rubble. Our parents, our children, our friends could have been killed and it would have been the end of the world, but because it was no one that we knew we do not care. Just last week when Red Cross was hosting a blood drive for the people in Haiti I heard someone utter, “oh my god all of our blood is going to the people in Haiti.” I think that if we can donate over 1,000 pints of blood to defeat Michigan why can’t we donate some to help people who desperately need it? This to me is sad because people have not only lost their families; they have also lost their homes and their livelihood. How could we wake up each morning, and not think about it? I admit at first I was a little annoyed of hearing about Haiti, but this actually hit close to home because my niece’s family are Haitian. I thank God that none of her relatives were hurt in the earthquake, but they could have been one of the unlucky people who it did affect. For people in the media to look at them and say it’s their fault because they signed a treaty with the devil is outrageous. How could anyone’s death be the fault of something they did not do something you concocted to explain why they the people who won their freedom from France are doing so badly? If we all thought about just one of the children, one of the parents, one of the friends as our own I highly doubt that we would ignore the situation. Just think it could have been you!
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I total agree with you about how a lot of people don’t seem to care about this devastating catastrophe and continue their lives like nothing has happened to me. I think one of the factors that makes people more ignorant or be careless to this tragic disaster is that people can’t find any relationship with their lives. To people, this is just an incident that happened in different country and they think they are not related in anyways. I think this is true for everybody. We are prone to not remember what is happening out there unless we see, feel and experience. We always think that there are other things that be have to worry about to make my life better. We worry about what is around us and what seems to be connected and what would affect my life. So for some of us, just looking what is on the media might touch our emotions and feels for couple of minutes but its very hard for us to think about this incident and do something for the people, who are suffering now.
Sometimes we have a hard time accepting these data and statistic. Come on, 300,000 people died from this single incident. That’s like having all the people from this campus get killed. Sometimes these statistics are numbers are so massive that it is so hard to believe this to be true. Personally I don’t even know how to react to this incident. I mean, I know that there are many people killed and suffering from this but it’s really hard to put myself in their situation. If we understood and felt what is it to be like the people suffering, we wouldn’t be sitting here worrying about our tests. We would be running around to do something to help Haitians.
This is same for every other topic. When we had a lecture about the slaves and coco planting, Most of us felt guilty to eat chocolates for that moment. I was even disgust to see some people eating the second piece of chocolate. But few days later I have found myself enjoying chocolate without even remembering how I felt before. I think it is really hard to share other’s suffering or even remember how they feel. In all, it is almost impossible to put ourselves in their shoes. Then, what are we suppose to do? Do we simply ignore what is happening out there and carry on with our lives? Or do we simply struggle from the guilt everyday? I think very best thing we could do is living our lives up to the full values and use whatever we are given to the people, who are less fortunate than us.
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I total agree with you about how a lot of people dont seem to care about this devastating catastrophe and continue their lives like nothing has happened to me. I think one of the factors that makes people more ignorant or be careless to this tragic disaster is that people cant find any relationship with their lives. To people, this is just an incident that happened in different country and they think they are not related in anyways. I think this is true for everybody. We are prone to not remember what is happening out there unless we see, feel and experience. We always think that there are other things that be have to worry about to make my life better. We worry about what is around us and what seems to be connected and what would affect my life. So for some of us, just looking what is on the media might touch our emotions and feels for couple of minutes but its very hard for us to think about this incident and do something for the people, who are suffering now.
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I total agree with you about how a lot of people do not seem to care about this devastating catastrophe and continue their lives like nothing has happened to me. I think one of the factors that makes people more ignorant or be careless to this tragic disaster is that people cannot find any relationship with their lives. To people, this is just an incident that happened in different country and they think they are not related in anyways. I think this is true for everybody. We are prone to not remember what is happening out there unless we see, feel and experience. We always think that there are other things that be have to worry about to make my life better. We worry about what is around us and what seems to be connected and what would affect my life. So for some of us, just looking what is on the media might touch our emotions and feels for couple of minutes but its very hard for us to think about this incident and do something for the people, who are suffering now.
Sometimes we have a hard time accepting these data and statistic. Come on, 300,000 people died from this single incident. That’s like having all the people from this campus get killed. Sometimes these statistics are numbers are so massive that it is so hard to believe this to be true. Personally I do not even know how to react to this incident. I mean, I know that there are many people killed and suffering from this but it’s really hard to put myself in their situation. If we understood and felt what is it to be like the people suffering, we would not be sitting here worrying about our tests. We would be running around to do something to help Haitians.
This is same for every other topic. When we had a lecture about the slaves and coco planting, Most of us felt guilty to eat chocolates for that moment. I was even disgust to see some people eating the second piece of chocolate. But few days later I have found myself enjoying chocolate without even remembering how I felt before. I think it is really hard to share other’s suffering or even remember how they feel. In all, it is almost impossible to put ourselves in their shoes. Then, what are we suppose to do? Do we simply ignore what is happening out there and carry on with our lives? Or do we simply struggle from the guilt everyday? I think very best thing we could do is living our lives up to the full values and use whatever we are given to the people, who are less fortunate than us.
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I total agree with you about how a lot of people do not seem to care about this devastating catastrophe and continue their lives like nothing has happened to me. I think one of the factors that makes people more ignorant or be careless to this tragic disaster is that people cannot find any relationship with their lives. To people, this is just an incident that happened in different country and they think they are not related in anyways. I think this is true for everybody. We are prone to not remember what is happening out there unless we see, feel and experience. We always think that there are other things that be have to worry about to make my life better. We worry about what is around us and what seems to be connected and what would affect my life. So for some of us, just looking what is on the media might touch our emotions and feels for couple of minutes but its very hard for us to think about this incident and do something for the people, who are suffering now.
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This question really does have a lot of answers I think. The first thing I would like to say is that three hundred thousand is a lot of people who died and that is some thing very serious that I honestly feel that a lot of people do not really understand. I also remember that guy in class who really summed it up when he put it in the perspective that 300,000 people died and hour flight trip away from Miami. That really mad me think that this type of natural disaster could really happen anywhere that there is the tectonic plates that move underground. Its just crazy that, this happened and I understand what this young lady is talking about how Haitians are just going on with their life and to say if someone loses a loved one its devastating and you take off a week or two just to get your head straight. In Haiti’s case a great part of the population has losed somebody and I wouldn’t even begin to describe the feelings that the people of Haiti have to get through emotionally.
The fact that I feel that a lot of people form the united states and people from all across the would can just move on after a couple of weeks is that fact that when some one loses a loved one and takes weeks off is because that actually does effect someone directly. Its sad to say but don’t think that a lot of Americans and people from across the world really have direct ties to Haiti that would make them grieve for so long. I don’t think its that fact that people don’t care I just think that it is different for people that didn’t know anyone there and some people would say that this is just life process.
I would also like to believe that we really all in it together and yes it is one world, but you have to remember that this would is split in so many ways that people are not going to just wake up one day and say hey everyone is going to love each other and care about each other, I believe that most human beings as a species are very me centered and tend to just say when natural disasters like something like this happens that most people would just say that yea that terrible what happened and in some type of way they are happy that did not happen to them.
Another thing that I would like to say its always going to be easier for someone to say that we should just move on to someone when its not them who has been affected. They don’t know just like I don’t know about those 300,000 people I don’t know I cant really understand their situation because im not n it and that why people would say we need to move on but yeah people will dwell when they lose their family, life, and way of understanding how the world works.
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I understand what this girl is saying about how people really are not taking this number into consideration. Yes this was a horrible thing that happened and yes there were many deaths, but so many people die every day in the United States. If we stopped to think about all of the people that died in the world and make such a huge deal about it then we would not have time for anything. By saying this I do not want to seem like I don’t care about the deaths, but that there is really nothing we can do about it but try to find ways to help.
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I completely agree with this post. Whose to say one life is more valuable than another life. I wonder this sometimes when I walk by Old Main and see the American flag at half mast. I wonder what famous person died or if there was a recent catastrophic event. We only put that flag at half mast when something like that happens. But in reality, everyday hundreds of thousands of people starve to death. Civilians are murdered due from the ongoing Genocide in Darfur. American soldiers die fighting for this country. There are tragedies everyday. So why are some deemed more "important" than others? Shouldn't the flag be at half mast all the time?
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Well those people over there can’t really afford to take off, they don’t have a home, they don’t have much of anything and it is a constant struggle for them. A lot of us here do want to give back, and one way or another a lot of people are taking the initiative to do so. However as much as we would all love to give them all the time, energy and money we have, a lot of us can’t because it is hard to leave everything we have behind. It is hard for us to ignore the problems, and responsibilities we all face here. As college students, we’re trying to earn a degree in a society that says getting a job afterwards is not guaranteed. And our parents are raising children and trying to put us all through college. The sad fact is that it is almost an everyone from themselves society, and while we are all deeply saddened about events that take away thousands of lives, its hard to drop the ones we love, or our responsibilities. We are terribly saddened by the events that transpired, and have all tried to given back in times if we can, or money as well, and that is the most we are able to do and still follow our responsibilities to ourselves and the ones we love.
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I do feel like a lot of people did help out in the beginning. This only really happened because there was so much news coverage and so many groups were getting involved. However, this eventually changed when the news coverage slowed down and people began to forget about what happened. I have to admit I even forgot about it, too. One of my friends is actually involved with Project Haiti and she tries to do as much as she can. This is something that I feel like I should have done.
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I remember reading an article maybe about a month ago about students support on Haiti. It was about how effort was slowly decreasing, while some groups were staying strong, including Project Haiti. Even though there was hardly any news coverage about it, groups were still involved. If only more groups were. It makes me think that I still can get involved and so can everyone else who has no helped at all really. If you think about it, there is still so much damage left and so many people left who need our help. I know right now that I am saying this and most likely I am probably going to forget about it with classes and getting ready for break, which is what is on everyone’s mind, but what if we really made it happen. We might think that just one person might not be able to help, but it just really takes one person. It starts with one person and then it turns into a huge group effort.
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Imagine an earthquake hitting here, we would definitely give it more attention. This is like this because it is our home and we feel protective of it. Now imagine this from the people of Haiti’s point of view. They are thinking the same thing. Now think about how you would want help getting back to how everything was.
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I remember when the earthquake in Haiti first hit. I was watching the news and all of a sudden something comes on about the biggest earthquake that hit and it was in Haiti. For a second, I thought how could have this happened. I thought about all of the people that lost their lives, how all of their buildings collapsed, and how so many people would not have anywhere to live anymore. After that I thought what I could do to help. However, I really did not do anything and because of this, I feel like I should have done more. The only thing that I helped with was donating in class whenever we did. I felt that this did go to some kind of change, but I could have done more.
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