Jackson Free Press

One of the great crimes of our generation is not the cries of suffering throughout our world, but rather that we maintain the ability to heal such suffering, and yet we remain silent. We still have the blood of Rwanda's genocide on our hands, and Sudan is nothing but an afterthought. Millions are dying from starvation across the globe, and there seems to be a greater moral imperative to build monuments dedicated to the Ten Commandments.

The cure of worldwide human-rights violations—female genital mutilation, false imprisonment and political suppression—could be sent to our neighbors in the way of military, diplomatic and humanitarian aid. But, it appears more important to focus on same-sex marriages as if two women holding hands were more dangerous than two men pointing guns.

The outrage of a generation has been lost to the cultural domination of media, globalization and materialism. MTV, ESPN and sitcoms have washed over us all, providing an antibody to the human connection. We no longer concern ourselves with our family's troubles or our world's constant pangs of hunger, disease and war. My generation has said that it is more important to tune into Jessica Simpson and the Red Sox than it is to tune into reality.

Globalization has taken all of this to a new level. We buy goods from all over the world without thought—has this been made by teens in sweatshops; is this supporting an authoritarian regime? We send our goods—Coca Cola, rap music and fast food—to nations that neither want nor like them. We market those products, nevertheless, with great precision and force so as to create a subconscious demand. We wonder still from where the global outrage stems?

Materialism has termed us the "me" generation. Wal-Mart has given us great bargains, but at what price? Children have made our shoes, old women have sewn our towels, and immigrants have picked our vegetables and fruit. But, we do not care. We continue to use the term "need" so loosely—I need a new pair of shoes. We are forgetting humanity in our nervous race to the check-out line.

We are forgetting that each one of us is intricately connected to the other, no matter the race, religion, creed or country—after all, God did create and breathe into each one of us.

We have become a nation of fear and not a nation of dreamers. We fear not having enough in our closets. We fear not having enough missiles. We fear homosexuals, and we fear infringements on what is "rightly" ours. This fear has given way to an America that is starkly different from the idealists that built our country. The United States is now a nation that cautiously hoards its belongings and is jealous of what each other might have. The defense system has become a $450 billion-a-year enterprise that ignores the poverty-stricken regions in the Mississippi Delta, the Native American reservations, the inner cities and immigrant lands of South Texas. Planes and bombs are more important than food and education.

Homosexuals are being relegated to a life of second-class citizenship because the so-called "moral authority" refuses to have a dialogue with them about their circumstances. I wonder how Christ would have responded to the Christian right's response that gays are sick individuals who must be cured? I doubt it would be the "God Hates Fags" mantra.

Finally, we have created a social tax system that completely forgives any duty for those on top to those on the bottom. Our society is like a triangle with the vast majority on the bottom getting poorer and poorer and the richer getting richer and more exclusive. Where has our human compass gone?

Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "The moral arc of the universe bends at the elbow of justice." What he meant was that the liberal ideas of abolition, women's rights, civil rights and so on will always carry the day, though that day may be long in coming. The logic then follows that the conservative positions have always lost to the higher notions of progressivism. Their ideas—progressive ideas—pull at the hearts of human beings who are naturally sympathetic. This is the candle in the darkness to many who are working for justice and peace—our time will always come, and the reactionary conservative's is always fleeting. But our society will never be as great or as just until we let go of our fears and give way to our dreams. Then and only then will the rightist ideologues be truly defeated.

Millsaps senior John Sawyer plans to enter the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) in the fall to become a Roman Catholic priest dedicated to social justice concerns. His column appears regularly in the JFP.