The women of Afghanistan should feel grateful they don't live in North Korea. Sounds nonsensical? Of course it does
The vulnerable and poor shouldn't be used as political props
I just need to say this in response to a certain kind of commentary I’ve witnessed over the past few days as the Taliban retook control of Afghanistan. I’m tempted to link to a few of them here, but that’s besides the point because the sentiment is shared by many. In a nutshell, the argument is that Americans, particularly those on the left, should show more gratitude to this country, to acknowledge how wonderful it is to live in a place like this compared to a country that requires a constant outside-military presence to maintain any sense of stability and for girls and women to have any rights.
It’s an argument made from a place of privilege by those telling others who aren’t as privileged to acknowledge their privilege. It’s as absurd as my headline. There is always someone worse off, someone who faces more challenges, someone under a greater threat than you are. That does not mean what you face is any less serious or dire. Who knows, maybe it’s better to be a woman under Taliban rule than being stuck in a North Korean concentration camp? Maybe that’s better than being a Muslim in a Chinese concentration camp? Heck, maybe that’s better than being an elementary-school aged Muslim in France.
Or maybe all of that was better than being a prisoner in Gitmo. Or a kid in the U.S.-backed war in Yemen where “immeasurably atrocities” were committed. Or a victim of countless drone strikes.
The idea that we must bow down and kiss the dirt beneath our feet because there are awful things happening in Afghanistan is transparently an ideology position disguised as principle, one often made by those who spent the Trump era scolding us to not forget the pain and suffering of the white-working class. It is an argument in favor of a status quo that has shown inequality reaching record highs and ignoring the nearly 50,000 Americans every year who decide to kill themselves instead of walking around saying how great it is to live in this land of plenty.
It was an awful sight, Afghan residents clinging to the wheels of U.S. military planes to escape that chaos, those horrors. We should grieve for them. We should pressure the U.S. to bring in as many refugees from that region as possible. But we should not pretend that because they are that desperate to leave that country that the decision tens of thousands of Americans make to put a gun in their mouths and pull the trigger because of the struggles they face here is any less tragic.
Everyone's struggles are tragic, but perhaps Americans would gain perspective by considering the worse material conditions that exist. I've lived in a country under martial law. And I am relieved to be an American. One of our country's most visible and unattractive flaws to outsiders is a sense of entitlement and the consequential lack of empathy.
You are right that poor conditions in country X are not justification for not addressing inequities in our own country. They should give pause to those seeking revolutionary change.
Life in the US vs. Life in Afghanistan is not a binary choice. The choice has always been between incremental change and revolutionary change. The former has been a success the later historically a disaster. As Delgado defines it CRT "rejects incrementalism and step by step progress, critical race theory questions the very foundation of the liberal order including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitution law." These principals are why the West is relatively safe and prosperous and its citizens have freedoms and rights unknow through most of the world and time. CRT seems oblivious to this. The inequities Delgado points to are minor and can and are being dealt with through existing civil rights laws. I repeatedly see CRT scholars calling for revolution.
An example the attack on math as White the CRT based curriculums being pushed will do nothing to improve our children's already dismal math ability. Spending fed $$ for tutors for low income students would. But teaching math is no longer the goal, indoctrination is.