When I stopped to ask the University of Iowa students bowling at Colonial Lanes in Iowa City on Martin Luther King Jr.’s Birthday what they thought was one of the most important human rights crises of our day, I knew I’d be writing this blog to coincide with the question. Still, that didn’t help determine my own thoughts on the question. It did make me realize how difficult it can sometimes be to answer something like this on the spur of the moment.
There are so many variables involved in that question, it’s pretty difficult to come up with an answer. Domestic or global? Physical or emotional? Government or private? All of those things can make a big difference in how someone would answer the question.
If we’re talking domestic human rights crises, the answers of those I spoke with stand out: racism; gay marriage; gay rights; religious bigotry; child abuse and neglect; elder abuse and neglect; the list goes on.
Globally the list gets even longer: genocide in any number of locations; political imprisonment; discrimination and bigotry even wider than we see in the United States.
What I’ve come to realize, I guess, is that it’s not my place to rank one violation as worse than another. Who am I to say one person’s pain is worse than another’s? I’ve been very fortunate to not have fallen victim to any of these. I had a wonderful childhood, was never beaten or tormented by anyone, I have always had a roof over my head and food in my refrigerator. While I’ve been outraged at seeing racial or other discrimination occur around me, I have not felt the blow of that discrimination upon myself.
That doesn't mean, however, that I am blind to the atrocities that occur, or that I am willing to tolerate them. I do find it disturbing that such things still take place. Some people still look at their neighbors and co-workers through tinted glasses, so to speak, ever-ready to cast that first stone. Others, while not casting the stone, sometimes find themselves stepping out of the line of fire rather than coaxing the offender to drop the weapon.
Then there’s the other group, the one whose members do what they can to raise awareness, promote tolerance and understanding, close gaps and build bridges.
Maybe one of the biggest crises is that there aren’t more in that group.