And I heard em say…

Far too many times have I heard… “But what can I do, I’m just one person.  Sure,  what’s happening is horrible, but I’m just one man!”  Seems a bit weak to me.  Just a cover.  If something were really wrong, there’s plenty you could do.  if it were your own sister or brother, you could do something.

I’m talking about alot of cases.  Starvation around the world… mass killings around the world… I don’t know what else.  There is something all of us can do.  But americans, maybe the west, maybe everyone is really just too lazy.  But I single out Americans, cause we are rich.  “I once complained because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet.”  There’s always someone worse off.  And there’s always something that can be done.

Granted, I must admit that I am a hypocrite on this.  I could be in the peace corps now.  I could give away all I had to feed the hungry.  Here’s my vein attempt to justify partially.  Doing so right now would lessen my future value.  Yes, it’s possibly to save a child right now, save 100 people.  But if I do that now, that’s all I might be able to do.  but if I graduate form MIT and do great things, then I could save 100 milliion people.  Deep, isn’t it.  Of course, it’s hard/impossible to weigh letting someone die not to save 100 in the future.

As Dilbert put it… if you were truly moral, you couldn’t justify buying/having anything as long as there was still 1 person starving.

Where are all the black people?

First off, that’s black in the Cambridge sense, which officially means “people who self define as Black.  Black shall be an embacing term covering those students who, by virtue of not being white, are at risk of racist discrimination and prejudice.”

So today I attending my first general meeting of the BAC (Black Student’s Campaign).  They discussed and made action plans for quite a few issues that face them on campus.  They ranged from how to get colleges to server Halal food for Muslims in the dining halls, to outright racism on campus.  I must say, I was surprised by what I found.

They spoke about how only 3% of non-white students receive A averages, vs the 21% of white students that receive that grade.  Tha’s fairly shocking.  Then I find that only 3% of the undegrads are non-white, and there are literally only a handful of non-white profs.

This raises atleast one question in my mind.  Is England a”white” country?  Certainly not every country is as diverse as the US.  Probably none other.  But is Nigera a “black” country?  And if you go to london, you will surely see tons of minorities.  So should the higher end schools like Cambridge reflect this?

Also, apprently muslims go through alot here.  I don’t drink.  So I miss out on alot of the bar stuff, I guess.  But when you can’t go in the bar, and hall is cut off because they won’t serve Halal food, that cuts off most of your social interaction.  Add to this, fresher’s week (read orientation for you yanks) is all about drinking.  Once again cutting them out.  This really blows.  But the BAC is in action and made some good proposals today.  Hope to see things get better.