Day 5: Out of Our Consciousness

I wrote about this after visiting Standing Rock. It is the same here.

We swept into Standing Rock, as we should have. Truck loads of donations trickled and then cascaded into the camps set up to block the pipeline - but not into the reservation where people also needed and need support and resources.

I wrote about how these people must feel, knowing how hard their families and ancestors have worked to merely survive and then suddenly for a few months, the rest of the nation sees them, or at least sees those who have become water protectors, and steps up to pitch in.

But the minute the camps are closed, out of our consciousness flees the people of Standing Rock.

Same thing is happening here in Mexico.

Tons of donations are being sent into Tijuana for refugees - as they should be.

Do NOT get me wrong: there are not enough donations and much more need, just among the recent influx of asylum-seekers, not even counting those that fled before October 2018.

We all know that when there are more needs than resources, people become more and more desperate. Poverty, violence, danger, exhaustion, despair abound - but so does kindness, cooperation, willingness to roll up the sleeves and help.

And people who have become more and more willing to embrace violence to 'protect' their wealth.

But I want to know, why are u.s.ofa. folks moved to share our immense wealth and possessions only at certain times when the mass media can no longer ignore activists or protectors of life and puts out their propaganda when they finally notice the people who are standing up and fighting, whether it's fighting the fossil extraction industry, the corporations that are destroying life, or our government's inhuman policies.

Huge amounts of people living on our borders have been very very poverty-struck for a long time. Many have been deported and are anxiously living on barren earth, under tarps if they're lucky, hovering near the wall, in case they can figure out how to recross the border that crossed them and separated them from their families and loved ones - or maybe only their job.

And yet, when I've stood behind a table laden with tons of food, holding a large spoon and placing small amounts of dinner on plates to hand to hungry people, very few say "dame mas por favor" (give me more please) but instead they smile shyly and say a deep "gracias".