I found this in some old computer files of mine today. I cannot tell you when I wrote it, or exactly what the point was of the article I wrote in response to. I do know that the responses to the plight of these poor African children working in gold mines made me very angry….
Post to MSNBC re: Children working in gold mines in Africa
I cannot understand (but then again maybe I can...) how a thread could begin as a discussion on the exploitation of children as young as 6 in Africa working in gold mines, getting paid with a bag of dirt, (if they get paid at all) then morph into discussions branching off into politics, contraception, and extraterrestrials. All of these Americans reading this article on their computers while they drink their morning coffee and eat their croissants, who cannot spare five minutes to care about the predicament of children as young as 6 being put into the position of feeling they have to work to help their families. To say you don't feel sorry for these children and you blame the parents who should stop having babies does not address the problem. Even if they stop having babies now, that doesn't do anything to help the children who are already here. And to proclaim that you don't care anything about these children because their parents should have stopped is just obscene. Perhaps they should have, but THEY DIDN'T, so now you're going to just throw their children on the garbage heap of insensitivity and ignorance? A child is a child, regardless of how many children his parents should or should not have had. (And who are you to judge anyway?) Each and every child is a young, innocent, human life, just as American children are here; the only difference is those children have had to grow up with the hardships of life thrust upon them, where American children for the most part do not. Here, the parents work and bring home enough to take care of the family; if they don't make enough there are plenty of organizations such as food pantries to help make ends meet. It's not like that in the poorer areas of Africa, or Asia. There is no soup kitchen down the street that they can hop on the bus and go to for a hot meal. There's no city rec center around the corner where the kids can go after school and wait for the parents to get off work. When was the last time your child saw you come home so tired you could barely walk, and offered to fix something for you to eat so you could rest, rather than whining "What's for dinner? I'm hungry!" American children, on average, DON'T. Those poor children in other countries see how hard their parents are working and feel bad for them, so they leave home to try to help in any way they can, and also so that will mean one less mouth for their parents to feed. How many American children can you name that would do that, at such young ages? And how many children there are in the family doesn't matter; I personally know a family in Nigeria which is only three children, and the eldest son has left home for that very reason. We here in America cannot comprehend someone feeding their family on the equivalent of $1.00 per day or less, but that is the situation most of these people are in. (The lucky ones manage to plant a little garden to help with the food situation, IF they can afford to buy seeds.) Please, these are only children, that is the topic today, not Obama, not Bush, not Newt Gingrich, not Republicans, not Democrats, and certainly not extraterrestrials. Just plain, ordinary, human, earth, children. Have a little concern for them today, please?
