I was watching some horrible videos on Aleppo the other day and my boyfriend asked me 
why I bother to watch such horrible things. They are so depressing, why do I put myself through that? I feel like that is most people’s view of Aleppo and other horrible things that are happening around the world.
There was an election last month and the winner of that election had a firm stand that Muslims are terrorists and that we should not take one refugee from any Islamic Nation. That’s very easy to say for people speaking hypothetically. It’s easy to sit in your comfy house, in your safe city, eating all the food that you could need and knowing that your babies are tucked cozy in their beds.
But that’s not what the rest of the world is experiencing. “1st world problems” has become a tagline for many things. “My iPhone broke #1stworldproblems” is very common. Most Americans today think that they have it rough if they don’t have a new car, or a big screen TV. They believe that America is a land of special people who have somehow earned the right to be better than others. That what happens to people in other countries, especially people with darker skin of other countries, is not our problem. They never look these babies in the eye and say, “Nope, you can’t come here.. you have to stay and die, because you’re not as good as an American”.
I don’t want to be one of those people that looks the other way. I don’t want to choose a political side over a human life. I want to do as much as I can to help as many people as I can. During this last election the Republicans were saying that Obama and Hillary created ISIS by leaving a power vacuum after the wars, and maybe they did. But the point is not who created the situation. The point is how can we solve it. I have posted before that hate
begets hate, and that is true. There are all these people, politicians, news casters, and just Joe Shmo on social media spewing hate about how bad Muslims are and how they deserve what they get and we shouldn’t help them after everything that they have done to us… but no one seems to take into account what we have done to them .
Yes, 9-11 was tragic, every moment of that day has been seared into my brain. Being from Boston, I knew people who died on the plane. I understand why we needed to get justice for that act. I don’t see how starting a war with entire countries and bombing civilians that weren’t involved is getting justice. We managed to take Osama Bin Laden through intelligence, not brute force.
Recently there was a young man from Ohio State who lost his mind and went on a rampage with a knife and his car and killed his fellow classmates. He said that he was doing it because he was so “sick and tired” of the hate directed at him. Many people have used this as yet another example of how all Muslims are about hate and want to kill everyone… but that’s not the story.. the story is that he was sick and tired of the hate. That there are plenty of normal loving Muslims, Jews, Christians, Native Americans, Blacks, Gays… and any other culture out there that just want to be left alone, but hate is thrown in their face everyday.
I am lucky. I am white. I was raised and continue to live in upper-middle towns. I am 
straight. I have a wonderful amazing son, who is also white. We are Catholic, and he goes to Catholic school. We are not rich, but we have what we need. But I understand that I am lucky. A few hundred years ago my Irish ancestors were not so lucky, and we have to remember what we are doing to everyone else in the world, because in a few hundred years who will be left and how will they be treated.
We watched Hitler try to kill off the Jews. We watched Stalin try to kill off his own. African nations and tribes have been killing each other for years. Every time we hear the stories we claim to be horrified, but we never step in till it’s on our own doorstep. Well, with society as it is, Social Media, the Global economy… everything is our door step. We need to stop treating people who happen to live in other places as the enemy. We have to start taking care of our own… Love begets love as well.
