WORLD WE DARE TO IMAGINE - PART 1

There’s an app called Flipboard that organizes news articles from all over into different subject categories which I flip through every morning and over 60% of the headlines are negative. Some of the headlines from today are: Supreme Court temporarily restores access to the abortion pill, Trump tells NRA he is their ‘fearless champion’ despite the recent spate of mass shootings, and Texas is on a crusade to kill the state’s renewable energy progress. When I started to think of ways to make the world a better place, I was pretty overwhelmed because I didn't know where to start or how to "prioritize" what needs to most attention.

One of the ways I approached this was to think about all the classes I have taken. I’ll never forget walking into apush in high school and Mrs. G telling us that most of the United States history we have learned in school was inherently biased. My cross-country teammate who attended school in Germany for a few years raised his hand and told us that they do not avoid their history in Germany, they recognize it and speak about their history. The younger children were taught a water-downed version, but in high school, there was a severe discussion plan about the grimmer history of Germany. While she taught us the history per the curriculum, she always told us what was ‘glazed’ over. She reminded us to dig deeper whenever we read anything regarding United States history.

In one of the anthropology classes, I took the professor quite often asked us if we knew random historical facts and the majority of the class would raise their hands but when he asked if we knew more important historical information such as how Christopher Columbus was responsible for the genocide of 7 million Native Americans after he determined they would not make good slaves only 0 to three out of 165 students raised their hands. One of the things he shared with the class was that Native American slavery and genocide were still legal in California after 1865 and when the United States found out they reimbursed California. In addition, all the groups in California that went underground due to genocides are not federally recognized to this date. There are so many issues affecting different communities but the majority of the time unless we specifically search for problems within specific communities or see them through social media we won't know.

Climate change is something that has to be addressed in order to build a better world. It is predicted that climate change is likely to cross the critically catastrophic threshold within the next decade. There are many effects of climate change from extreme weather to rising temperatures which can lead to other problems such as food scarcity. These impacts are particularly bad for people living in poverty worldwide due to the lack of resources and infrastructure. I am not necessarily sure what the first step would be to enact the change toward a better world but I propose searching a little deeper instead of just focusing on what we can see. In other words, as I previously mentioned if you open any news website you will be bombarded by important problems that need our attention. Maybe the best thing would be to take a step back from focusing on every single problem and beginning with a problem within a local community or learn more about how you can help solve an issue in order to prevent being overwhelmed.