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I hate to break it to ya, guys, but it's not just issues of race . . . people (especially of college-age) suck in general.
I just spent 4 hours trying to get people to give their pocket change for a children's cancer fund - they'd rather shoot you a sidelong glance than give a freaking quarter to help a kid. It's unconscionable. If you can't possibly give a dollar, then no worries - but if you won't, perhaps there are other issues . . . and if you value that 43 cents in your pocket that much, you have some huge problems.
I think it's a by-product of the latent small-mindedness we foster up until (and including) college age - all you know is what is immediately around you. We shelter our kids in carefully constructed suburban communities, or create schools based primarily of one race or another - especially with white kids, few are put into positions where interaction with anything other than their exact socioeconomic group is required. Then it becomes easy to think of a group of people as being inferior, or lose any compassion for those less fortunate, because you have no immediate involvement or investure with them. In the case of these kids we're raising money for, they become a nuisence, something you read about and feel glad you're not. In the case of race, it becomes a sort of cartoon, a stereotype of a stereotype of an entire population of diverse people.
We're not talking about ethnic jokes here - it's an attitude, nay a culture, that promulgates actual abasement based on race, etc, WITHOUT EVEN THINKING ABOUT THE CONSEQUENCES OR RATIONALE BEHIND IT. It's simply surreal.
(yeah I'm pretty hot about this philanthropy thing . . . )
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