As you can see, we had a very interesting discussion...
Many ideas, thoughts, and questions came up for me during this discussion.
First of all, someone in the class brought up that it can be difficult to form opinions on current issues when we are hearing different sides of a story that greatly vary from each other. An example I can think of in my own life is the police brutality issue in Ferguson. At first, I was outraged by what I heard: that an unarmed black man named Michael Brown was shot by a police officer while he had his hands in the air. I then heard people on various news stations stating that "Michael Brown was the criminal" in the situation just because he was robbing a store. Honestly, I was pissed. Just because a person is a criminal doesn't give anyone the right to kill them unarmed. Then I heard another version of the story where Michael Brown was attempting to wrestle a gun out of the police officer's hands. Now I'm confused and don't know what to think about the situation. What sources are trustworthy? Are there any unbiased sources? Oh wait, I already know the answer to that question is no...
I thought that another interesting point that came up during our discussion is that there are probably plenty of issues with our world that we are currently not seeing. I think the reason for this might be because when one problem is solved, it unveils or maybe even creates new problems. Or maybe it's just one big issue that is being solved one small step at a time. For example, in 1848, the issue was that women weren't allowed to vote. When women were granted that right in 1920, the issue was solved. However, now women are still fighting for equal pay in the workplace. So although the women at the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention got what they wanted, a new problem was unveiled. Someone in our class spoke about how she was appalled when she heard someone state that racism doesn't exist in our day and age. Although the problem may no longer be slavery, we have evolved to new forms of racism.
Another thing we spoke about in class was complacency. The fact that so many people my age are so complacent actually makes me a little anxious. Our generation has to make some changes or I feel that we will have nothing left. Maybe every generation feels this way, but it almost seems that things have gotten so bad that we have no choice but to fix things. The environment, for example, is going to be completely destroyed and us out of resources VERY SOON if we don't learn how to conserve and treat the earth with more respect. I hope to be able to motivate people, or to help them find something they are passionate about working on to make our world a better place! If each person just chose one issue they were passionate about fixing, think of how much better of a place our world would become.
Although I left class with a few more questions, some of mine got answered as well. For example, I asked about prioritizing issues. The basic answer to this question is that we can't. We can't say that child abuse is more important than world hunger. We can't say that recycling is more important than police brutality. They are all important, and the best we can do is choose a few issues that we are most passionate about. One person can't take on everything.
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