Feed the Children

I can remember what my mother used to say to me and my brothers when we wouldn't eat some of the great food she cooked for us like liver, black eyed peas, or spinach. "That's good food, eat it, there are children starving in Africa and they would love to have that food." One of the worst head slaps I received was the one and only time that I said "give it to them then."

The morale of the story though is that we live in the richest country in the world ,and I should have been grateful for whatever meals I received. This hit me hard last night as I watched the evening news and saw the starving and dying children in Somalia. I actually felt ashamed for the huge lunch that I had that day now knowing that others were starving in such staggering numbers. It is only by the grace of God that I was born here in America and not there.

 It also angered me to see the news media there now, when more than 40,000 children would die from starvation and a refugee camp the size of Cleveland in the dessert, without food, water, shelter and with little hope. Where were they when the drought was occurring for over two years, and the civil war has been raging for a decade, and thousands of lives have been lost? While America has fought and spent billions of dollars on the war in Iraq, based on a false premise and ego, it has turned a blind eye on this type of suffering. Were these people's rights less violated here than there? Or was it because there is nothing to be gained in the form of oil, minerals, or leverage. And last but not lease is it because these are people of color? Does our country's moral compass  not extend to Africa as it does the Middle East ?

So the media will now try to bring attention to this desperate situation, in the hopes that ordinary people or any civilian organization with financial means will help. Even the poorest of us is better off that these forgotten people, mostly women and children, and no matter how bad it gets I will never forget that.