Harvest of Shame

I actually watched this video a couple weeks back, and it has been on my mind since. I was afraid of how I would react - either seal myself in a wall of cynicism and rationalization or fall into bitterness and confusion -- to meeting so many people who, from my perspective are oppressed and suffering human rights abuses under my own government, in my immediate economic community. A couple of conversations have brought me back to my beliefs that everyone has diginity and we must learn to live with our inability to completely know other people's concepts of reality. We walk around with mental maps of good or bad, high status or low status, lots of choices or no choices, and we naturally put everyone we meet on that map. But everyone's map is different, most people put themselves in the middle of that map in any case. The only way we can learn how someone else sees their own situation is to listen. There will not be a lot we can do about enforcement or deep solutions in our short trip. But the hugeness of the problem does not make our attempt to learn about it and the people involved futile. On the contrary, it is our only option. Opening ourselves up to learning what don't like to imagine is the only possible first step towards changing it.