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Focusing on the Needy Closer to Home Focusing on the Needy Closer to Home
(3 months later)
At the Harvard University commencement exercises some days ago, a sea of black-robed graduates sat expectantly on the grass, one step away from the fearsome bounty of real life. One discipline at a time, they rose to receive their degrees, waving relevant totems — stethoscopes for the medical students; inflatable globes for scholars of international relations. Conferring each degree, the university president, Drew Gilpin Faust, urged graduates to use their newfound powers to serve their community.At the Harvard University commencement exercises some days ago, a sea of black-robed graduates sat expectantly on the grass, one step away from the fearsome bounty of real life. One discipline at a time, they rose to receive their degrees, waving relevant totems — stethoscopes for the medical students; inflatable globes for scholars of international relations. Conferring each degree, the university president, Drew Gilpin Faust, urged graduates to use their newfound powers to serve their community.
But which community?But which community?
This question hovers over America’s classes of 2014 as they move from the spring of commencement inspiration to the summer of real work: If they take seriously the exhortation to serve, should they focus on the hardest lives on earth, far from here, or on the more prosperous but differently hurting corners of America? Which will it be — malaria in Malawi, or meth in Minnesota?This question hovers over America’s classes of 2014 as they move from the spring of commencement inspiration to the summer of real work: If they take seriously the exhortation to serve, should they focus on the hardest lives on earth, far from here, or on the more prosperous but differently hurting corners of America? Which will it be — malaria in Malawi, or meth in Minnesota?
It’s a whispered debate that I hear more and more among Americans who have devoted their last many years to the woes of Nigeria and India and Bolivia, working for charities, social enterprises, NGOs, the United Nations. Quietly, they ask: Is it time for some of us to come home?It’s a whispered debate that I hear more and more among Americans who have devoted their last many years to the woes of Nigeria and India and Bolivia, working for charities, social enterprises, NGOs, the United Nations. Quietly, they ask: Is it time for some of us to come home?
To be clear, it’s hardly a debate about deserting those fights against poverty far from home. Rather, it’s about whether poverty in Kentucky has found it harder than poverty in, say, Rwanda to attract the smartest, most passionate people on earth.To be clear, it’s hardly a debate about deserting those fights against poverty far from home. Rather, it’s about whether poverty in Kentucky has found it harder than poverty in, say, Rwanda to attract the smartest, most passionate people on earth.
In many ways, it’s a sign of how much more cosmopolitan the United States has grown that this is even a question. It wasn’t so long ago that Chinese food was the only foreign fare in many parts, and awareness of Africa was mostly limited to what could be gleaned from those ads with fly-covered, puff-bellied children, and it was unremarkable for someone in Cleveland to ask my Indian mother if the red circle on her forehead was in fact a hole filled with blood.In many ways, it’s a sign of how much more cosmopolitan the United States has grown that this is even a question. It wasn’t so long ago that Chinese food was the only foreign fare in many parts, and awareness of Africa was mostly limited to what could be gleaned from those ads with fly-covered, puff-bellied children, and it was unremarkable for someone in Cleveland to ask my Indian mother if the red circle on her forehead was in fact a hole filled with blood.
It took a lot of work to get to this moment, when so many of the smartest Americans devote their youths to solving problems far from home. Their choice reflects arguments made by philosophers like Peter Singer that, given finite resources, the very neediest deserve our help before we worry about the moderately needy or, worse, our comfortable selves.It took a lot of work to get to this moment, when so many of the smartest Americans devote their youths to solving problems far from home. Their choice reflects arguments made by philosophers like Peter Singer that, given finite resources, the very neediest deserve our help before we worry about the moderately needy or, worse, our comfortable selves.
If you accept that argument, then the single mother in West Virginia, making $17,000 a year, pregnant with her third child from the third man who will leave, battling a creeping reliance on Oxycontin, living miles from nutrition but very close to sunken men with guns — this woman will perhaps never compel your help.If you accept that argument, then the single mother in West Virginia, making $17,000 a year, pregnant with her third child from the third man who will leave, battling a creeping reliance on Oxycontin, living miles from nutrition but very close to sunken men with guns — this woman will perhaps never compel your help.
Of course, it depends on how we define need. Go by income or caloric consumption, and the woman has no chance. But other, more qualitative measures might level the field. The woman is isolated, because in America loneliness is a regressive tax, adding insult to the injury of poverty. The woman may exceed 2,500 calories a day, and may even be obese, but it’s at least arguable that she has as little meaningful access to nourishment as India’s starving. She may have made poor choices in men, but those choices were shaped by a reality that is absent in so much of the developing world: the mass incarceration of men that leaves few of them whole and sane and capable of sharing a life.Of course, it depends on how we define need. Go by income or caloric consumption, and the woman has no chance. But other, more qualitative measures might level the field. The woman is isolated, because in America loneliness is a regressive tax, adding insult to the injury of poverty. The woman may exceed 2,500 calories a day, and may even be obese, but it’s at least arguable that she has as little meaningful access to nourishment as India’s starving. She may have made poor choices in men, but those choices were shaped by a reality that is absent in so much of the developing world: the mass incarceration of men that leaves few of them whole and sane and capable of sharing a life.
Her life, like so many American lives today, could benefit from an injection of ingenuity by the brightest minds: new banking systems targeted to the needs of poor people, reform of the prison and mental-health systems, the extension of nutrition to the majority of Americans who don’t shop at Whole Foods, the invention of ultra-low-cost medical procedures.Her life, like so many American lives today, could benefit from an injection of ingenuity by the brightest minds: new banking systems targeted to the needs of poor people, reform of the prison and mental-health systems, the extension of nutrition to the majority of Americans who don’t shop at Whole Foods, the invention of ultra-low-cost medical procedures.
On Mother’s Day some weekends ago, Pier 45 in Manhattan swelled with the beautiful, the rich and the well-meaning. The occasion was a gala brunch on the Hudson River, in honor of a new clothing line called Born Free Africa, proceeds from which go to fighting H.I.V. there. A nobler cause there could not be. Yet it was hard to shake the feeling that the different ailments of America could never get such attention.On Mother’s Day some weekends ago, Pier 45 in Manhattan swelled with the beautiful, the rich and the well-meaning. The occasion was a gala brunch on the Hudson River, in honor of a new clothing line called Born Free Africa, proceeds from which go to fighting H.I.V. there. A nobler cause there could not be. Yet it was hard to shake the feeling that the different ailments of America could never get such attention.
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