I Don't Want To Talk About This...
And that's part of the problem. We have to talk about this. We have to know what is going on in this country.
I’ve been avoiding it for some time now, but something obviously needs to be said. Apparently, the U.S. government is running concentration camps for migrant children.
The conditions in these camps are so bad that they are sleeping on concrete floors with aluminum blankets, the lights are not shut off at night so they can sleep, and they don’t have access to things like soap or toothpaste.
It has also been reported that there is inadequate food, water, and sanitation. The New York Times reported stories of small children without diapers, older children comforting younger children. They are living in cages for god's sake!
If you also can’t just sit around and watch this disgusting violation of human rights, here is a link to some things you can do:
Things You Can Do To Help Migrant Children
This is disgusting, and we will look back at this time in history and shame ourselves. How about we shame ourselves right now? There is more of a debate about what we should call these camps, concentration or internment, as if the debate about what to call them is more important than the atrocities occurring inside of them.
There is no justification to treat children, or any human beings, like this. I thought this was America, the land of the free. We can be complicit while this is happening. I am the daughter of immigrants, and I am aware of my parent's struggle even without enduring this type of torture.
Being an immigrant has never been easy in America. If we recall we once kept Japanese people in camps during World War II. Of course, if we go back even further in history, we used to keep black people as slaves. Historically we don’t have a good record of how we treat immigrants.
It’s probably inevitable that it would happen again. But we cannot be OK with this just because we are used to the insanity of this particular president and administration. If we allow this, what’s next?
Theoretically, we say we look down on countries like China who have rampant human rights violations. But as Werner Herzog put it: “Dear America: You are waking up, as Germany once did, to the awareness that ⅓ of your people would kill another ⅓, while ⅓ watches.”
We are watching this happen, thinking that there is nothing we can do. There is. We can vote this administration out. We can vote in people who will preserve human rights in this country.
And finally as Brene Brown said, “If your response is, ‘The parents should not have brought their children here illegally,’ know this: I pray to God that you never have to flee violence or poverty or persecution with your children. And, if the day comes that you must and your babies are forcibly removed from your arms, I will fight for you too.”
nina