Posted by
Christine White on Monday, November 03, 2008 10:09:00 AM
I’ve been thinking about why I have been so offended lately with so much going on in the media. I have been saddened deep in my soul by so much of what I have seen and heard. The sheer hatred coming at Americans right now from both parties and the media is daunting. It has cast a dark shadow across our nation. The darkness has been so overwhelming to me, that I’ve had to stop watching TV and reading the news. All that I see there is hate. Hate that is dividing our country.
There have been comments made in campaigns that admonish Americans for not doing enough to help out those in need. Comments that paint a hateful picture of our country. Comments that accuse Americans of being selfish. Comments that we don’t a very good job of taking care of other nations who are less wealthy than our own. Comments that we don’t do enough to close the economic gaps within our own society. Comments that we don’t have very much to be proud of. Those comments (among many others) are putting a huge divide in the hearts of Americans because they are simply not true.
It makes me sad that apparently the people who are making those comments have not witnessed in their lives the same America that I have. While I agree, there is much we need to improve on. I also relish and cling to the freedoms and opportunity to serve others that many seem to have taken for granted. When I hear some of these words that offend me, it makes me stop and wonder from what view of our American landscape do they come?
When I look out my Midwestern window, I don’t see the hate and selfishness that Americans are being accused of. Yes, those people exist. But there are far more of us who display quite the opposite.
When I look out my Midwestern window, I see a landscape of beautiful people that I am often proud of.
I see doctors who voluntarily take their skills and finances to countries where they administer free care to people who have none.
I see multitudes of Americans who hitched up their boats and drove across the country to rescue people off of rooftops after Katrina.
I see school children go door to door collecting supply donations to ship to hurricane victims.
I see the ingenuity of young people searching for way to give a hand to cancer patients.
I see an entire community rally around a young teenage cancer patient to pay for her medical care.
I see middle class citizens laying aside their own lives and finances to travel to earthquake and tsunami struck regions to help complete strangers rebuild entire towns.
I see people buy new shoes for school children without ever having met them.
I see groups of people work to give Christmas gifts to down trodden inner-city mothers who would otherwise have not one.
I see volunteers providing free after school child care to children who would otherwise be left on their own for hours on end.
I see Americans lay aside their own financial aspirations to donate funds to operate American orphanages, soup kitchens, homeless shelters and women’s shelters.
I see teams of Americans accumulating donations for supplies and traveling to other countries to build schools, homes and civic buildings.
I see Americans who not only welcomed countless refugees from African war torn nations, but volunteered time and resources to teach them English, teach them to drive, find them jobs, DRIVE them to work, clothe them, buy them cars and give them supplies for their homes from soap to blankets to furniture.
Year after year I see my own mother raise donations for and then deliver entire Thanksgiving meals to multiple families who would otherwise go hungry.
I see Americans rallying around one another, supporting one another, giving a helping hand to one another regardless of race, religion or differences of opinion, of lifestyle, of education or of social class.
Yes. I AM proud to be an American where we have, not only the freedoms and opportunity to do these things, but over and over we have proven we have the heart as well. That desire to give a helping hand has never needed to be mandated by our government because it is already in the heart of so many of its people. Sadly, you would never believe this if your point of view of America was formed by what is seen on TV or what comes out of political campaigns.
This IS a great landscape full of generous people and, despite all of our faults, I AM proud of this nation and the people within it. What these generous people need is not criticism and admonition; they need a few more volunteers to hold out a helping hand.