My evening class today was a mind-blow. It was three hours of sort of overstimulation of the empathetic system. Yes, I know the empathetic system is a figment of my imagination, but I don't really know how else to describe how I felt. First, we watched a short film about the School of the Americas. School of the Americas is something I sort of knew about in the back of my head, where my long list of government attrocities is filed, but nothing I'd ever given too much thought or study to.
Jesus H. Christ. It should be unbelieavable, but sadly it isn't.
That segued into talk about human rights abuses worldwide, inequality, etc. etc. etc. All of that stuff that makes a nice, comfortable, happy liberal like myself feel really fucking guilty, and for good reason.
In the midst of my class notes, I jotted this down:
Get out of your own head and start actually doing something. Walk the talk. Being indignant is not enough. Being outraged is not enough. There is so much that needs to be fixed, sitting here in your comfortable life and whining is NOT ENOUGH. Wake up!
Obviously not great prose, but you get the idea. I feel really strongly that I need to stop pretending that "caring" in some abstract way is enough while not being willing to make any sacrifices in my own life. I shop at Old Navy for God's sake! If that's not explicit support of the entire system of global repression of the poor, I don't know what is. There is just as much blood on my hands as on anyone else's and pretending that I believe that what I choose to do doesn't make a difference doesn't change that. I'm not fooling anyone, and I'm really not even fooling myself.
So.
What to do?
I'm going to start a list. Please feel free to add to it in the comments. I need all the help I can get.
1. Stop buying clothes and other items that I know good and goddamn well were manufactured in countries with unprotected work forces. There's no fucking excuse for me to be doing that. I have the time to find better places to spend my money.
2. Educate myself about what's going on worldwide. Stop being so American-centric with my interests and politics.
Actually, I am going to stop with just those two things, because if I can incorporate those into my life successfully, that will be a good first step, and overwelming myself with a whole big list will just give me an excuse to slack off about it.