I have as of late received numerous requests to be more generous with my meager assets. In particular, my high school alma mater has enlisted a few of my classmates' aid in soliciting donations from me, as well as from my other compatriots.
I would like to formally respond here and now to those requests, as I feel my moral responsibility has been directing my pocketbook elsewhere in my community, state, and nation, not to mention the world as a whole.
To begin with, it has been no secret that educational opportunities for minorities in the United States in general, and the American South in particular, have dwindled somewhat as of late. Perhaps that is an understatement. The truth of the matter is that the last fifty years of American life have seen a steady, persistent, and ever accelerating erosion of the civil rights and liberties our great society originally promised to all of its citizens.
And in recent years, that steady march into the abyss has taken on a frenzied, frenetic pace, to the point where states such as North Carolina are no longer even classified as democracies. Our state itself now ranks just above Sierra Leone in electoral integrity metrics, and is categorized as a pseudo-democratic, pseudo-authoritarian principality.
In short, North Carolina has become the Gaza Strip of the Western Hemisphere. And it very clearly shows, in everything from rampant Klan rallies, to election fraud, to the separate-but-equal institutions which now govern, educate, and enforce the laws of our morally decrepit nation-state.
Which brings me to my opening point: donations to my alma mater. I cannot tell anyone else what to do with their money. I can only attest to what I plan to do with mine. And I have in recent years found a multitude of more worthy causes than propping up a third world dictatorship in the making. I will list just ten of those causes now, in no particular order:
- Helping victims of anthropogenic climate change
- Helping mothers accused of non-violent offenses to afford bail
- Helping victims of war, famine, and disease to rebuild their lives
- Helping to free refugees detained and abused by the United States Government
- Helping to teach sustainable agriculture
- Investing in renewable forms of energy, such as wind, solar, and tidal
- Protecting endangered species from extinction
- Helping victims of domestic violence
- Helping victims of stalking and harassment
- Helping to build and distribute technologies to disadvantaged households
Again, to reiterate what I have said in previous posts, my aim is not to save the world. That would be supremely egotistical of me. Neither is this any sort of religious edict demanding that the public boycott the American South. These are simply causes I consider more important than those I have been personally solicited for, and hence serves as my own personal explanation for having declined the offer.
In closing, I will give but one piece of advice. If you feel like helping society's disadvantaged, do not ask yourself "what would Court do", or "what does my alma mater want". We are all equally mortal, and equally flawed.
Instead, ask yourself what a man of such splendor as Christ would do. Would he spend his time, energy, and resources helping those who were not in need of it? Or would he instead heal the lepers, give sight to the blind, feed the hungry, preach to the poor, etc? Because whatsoever he would do, lesser beings such as us would likely benefit from doing as well.
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