Priorities and Privilege
What a summer! I don’t know about you, but I was planning on resting this summer. You know commune with nature, learn to garden, wake up late… none… I mean NONE of those things happened this summer. Wait, I’m lying. I think there was a random Thursday when I slept in until 8:30am (remember I have dogs — no sleeping in!)
One thing I didn’t expect to learn this summer was… humility. I had the great pleasure of working with SMU instructor Michele and eight intelligent men and women from Skyline High School. SMU offers a free week long broadcast camp for students who may not get a chance to attend college. Michele’s goal for these students is to get them to attend college. She would love to have them at SMU, but her ultimate goal is to get them in college, any college.
As I was watching her joke with her students, I noticed she listened to them with an astute ear. She can hear whether a student is alluding to problems at home or just joking.
I’ve known that the choices I made this summer were those of a privileged person. However, no one’s told me to take a good look at my priorities and privilege. After meeting these students I knew I needed to get perspective. The choices I’ve made have everything with do with privilege — when there isn’t food in the house or your parents can’t find a job — going green is meaningless, useless really. Talking with these students reminded me of this.
Green is a wonderful state of mind, but it takes money and time. When you don’t have a lot of money you generally don’t have a lot of time to think about nonessentials.
What you’re reading is me checking myself — I’m happy with my life — but what I am doing to help the people in the world? Where is the Green answer to that?
I’m still trying to answer that question — what are you doing?
Wondering how green you are? Take this test:
http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/how-green-are-you
Filed under: Uncategorized on August 8th, 2008
Leave a Reply