What I had to say about well-meaning "charity"
D-Dawg, a conservative commenter, questioned the Rev's entire premise: that charity to people in poor communities should be well-thought-out, in order to make genuine improvements in the conditions under which the "beneficiaries" work and live. I made a few retorts of my own. Here are a couple of them:
"Yeah, that sounds nice; it also sounds too abstract and high-flown. This response to my complaint, and the actual AUTHOR'S, about barging into a struggling community with vast supplies of cheap whatever, completely ignores the fact that it disrupts the livelihood of a large percentage of an already hard-up population, who certainly don't need any such interference. It's all very well to sit in a nice North American armchair and say that 'things balance out in the end, my friend.' But you are only talking about an abstract 'balancing' of the 'economy;' we want to make economic conditions better and more HUMANE for real, flesh-and-blood PEOPLE. Jesus did not tell his followers to iron out rough-looking economic indicators; He told them to be of service to real people's needs. There is a big difference!
"That depends on the nature of that corporate employment.
"I have before me a collection of petition postcards, which I
have disgracefully shared with none of my acquaintances, from a group of U.S.
states, local governments, and school districts, called SweatFree Communities;
which want[ed] to end the use of sweatshop labor to make uniforms and other
apparel for use by our government employees. In other words, to stop supporting
sweatshop slavery and exploitation at American taxpayers' expense! On the front
of this card is a photo of a couple of seamstresses, one of whom (the one in
front) doesn't look much older than fourteen. Is this the charity we want to
show to struggling people in Third World countries??"
Any opinions about charity and what it should really do, either for the benefactors or the recipients?
Posted by Jennifer A. Nolan
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