What in the World
"If I blindfolded someone
and took them at 2 o'clock in the morning into the airport in Hong Kong and
said 'where do you think you are?' They would say, 'this must be America. This
is a modern airport,'" he said on Thursday. "If I took them blindfolded
and took them to LaGuardia airport in New York, he would like 'I must be in
some third world country.' I'm not joking."
The first time I visited the US, I wanted to go to Watts, a Black ghetto.
I had read about this place in the papers - there were riots there and burning of houses and much protest in the eighties...
I just wanted to see it for myself.
All my friends and relatives refused to take me there...They were scared. They wanted to convince me that it is a dangerous place and I should not visit there.
I took a taxi.
I and my wife visited the place...
In the afternoon sun the place looked desolate and deserted. There were few elderly people playing checkers and that was all...We walked through the main street and came to a monument. The artist had built a tower and it was built by local trash... It was lovely and very insightful.
The place was calm and no one bothered us.
After half an hour or so we returned back.
I have been to New York...and seen buildings burned down and vacant...The place was scary and very sad...Entire rows of buildings blackened and abandoned.
I have seen homeless people with carts and all their belonging...They remind me of The Wretched of the World - a book by Frantz Fanon, a French writer.
My students have participated in Thanksgiving Food Drives. They know that 1 in every 3 children go hungry to school every day...in Toronto.
My students have participated in Christmas Baskets for needy families.
My students do not need to be blindfolded...No one needs to be blindfolded...We realize that the Third World exists in our midst...
I guess VP Biden, and the bureaucrats in ivory towers do not have much time to visit ghettos or inner cities with burned out buildings. They dash from airport to airport and do not notice the homeless...
The ghettos, the burned out buildings and the homeless and the Native People's reservations remind me very much of the Third World. I do not need to be blindfolded and taken to LaGuirdia...
VP Biden and all the bureaucrats in Washington and Ottawa are blindfolded to notice the wretched of the world in our, their, backyard.
It is sad that our leaders walk around in blindfolds and ignore the schools and the needs for better education system-better buildings, better educated teachers, better cultural centers.
The leaders ignore their people...
May be the young will change all of this...May be things will be better...
May be Blacks and all races will live in harmony.
May be there will be peace.
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