After finishing the documentary
“Born into Brothels” the class received a firsthand view of an entire
neighborhood that lived in extreme poverty and deal with hardships that
suburbanite kids will most likely never have to face in first class, first
world America. The ideas that just because the kids lost the birthing lottery
they are going to be stuck in poverty and live their life in squalor is one
that hits you right in the gut. The only way these kids were able to escape their
surroundings is through the help of an outsider, a person who left their
comfortable life behind to assist those who have none of the benefits she had received
at home. She entered the red-light district and gave the kids something to work
for, to live for, photography. This was the kids saving grace, had she not come
and given them the ability to travel and capture the country their life would
be no different than their moms and their grandparents, pimps and prostitutes. The
outsider not only taught them but she fought for them as well. She contacted
countless boarding schools to try and find a spot for these kids so they could
get and education and leave their surroundings. She spent hours waiting in line
and fighting the diplomatic process to get these kids documents allowing them
to escape the red light district. She effectively gave them life.
The great deeds of an outsider and
poor conditions that these kids live in are not what make this best
conversation of the week. To answer the
best of the week question you have to consider another question, could these
kids have made it without her help? What if the outsider never entered the red
light? What if other kids were chosen for her photography classis? Would these
kids still have been successful or would the fall into the same pitfalls that
countless other had. As sad as it may be I think the answer to this question
no. I don’t think there is any way these kids could have finished school,
gotten into college and get degrees in medicine and law if someone had not come
and fought for them to succeed. I don’t think they would have found the necessary
support, the determination or the craving for education. I think they would
continue to live in the brothels, continue to work for pennies and eventually
sell their bodies to support them. So while the greatest thing for the week was
in no way a good thing the thoughts and discussions that stemmed out of it as
well as the extreme acts of kindness from a person who owed nothing to these
kids make it the greatest thing for the week.
I haven't see this documentary, nonetheless I found this post very interesting. Global poverty is something I've been stuck on for quite some time now and is something I hope will remain on the forefront of my consciousness throughout my lifetime. I was actually having a conversation with Kris earlier tonight about some of the ideas you brought up. The first idea you brought up that constantly runs through my mind is the idea of the lottery of life and the staggering reality that the lives we lead and the abundant fortunes we have experienced are a result of us happening to have been born at what really is the top of society not only now but in all of history. The comfort we experience is unprecedented. Yet, a great deal of the world is in a state of deep need and inescapable suffering. Like us, these people have done nothing to affect their realities.
ReplyDeleteLike you implied, the environment into which a person is born is the ultimate determinant of his or her fate. Having internalized the pure chance that dictates how we live and that this coincidental nature of existence has made half of the world slaves to their own poverty, are we then compelled to do what this woman did and reach out of our world into theirs? I think too often people think that these children chosen for the photography classis were somehow special and would have alleviated themselves from their situations, and would have done so had she not intervened because it makes us feel better. If we attribute the outcomes of peoples lives to their internal qualities rather than a simple lack of luck we can look at them and feel justified in further seeking our own indulgence. In seeing the impoverished as innocent victims of circumstance, we begin to gain the ability to see that our lives would play out nearly identically given the same conditions. Differences fall away and those we separate ourselves from become closer.
I personally feel that the eventual internalization of these concepts leaves us with no other choice than to dedicate ourself to reducing this gap as much as we each can because, as this woman proved, an individual can be very powerful when reality is faced and then addressed.