Dear Drunk Guy pedir-ing me for money while offering a sob
story about your sick sister-in-law and problems with unemployment,
I’m sorry about the current adversity you’re facing. It sounds like you and your family are really
struggling. It’s a terrible thing having
to bear witness to a family member dying a slow and painful death from Malaria
right in front of your eyes.
Additionally, I’m terribly sorry that you’ve been unable to find a job
since graduating from Secondary School.
It really is an incredible achievement, but I can’t even begin to
imagine the frustration you must be feeling after working so hard for so long,
for what now seems like something that wasn’t worth the effort. I can assure you that in the long run, it
will pay off. Try to keep your head up, but more importantly, stay active and
keep looking for work. In this country,
work isn’t going to find you.
All that said, no I will not be giving you any money to
“help your sister-in-law.” Aside from
the fact that I am 115% sure that when you say you want to buy medicine for
your sister-in-law and that you actually mean you want money so you can to buy
more shitty plastic-bottle gin for yourself, I am not here to give
handouts. I’m here to give lessons. I’m here to build the latent capacity of you
and some of your fellow countrymen currently being misappropriated. What I’m not here to do is give you money and
continue to reinforce any sort of dependency on the wallets of the white man, a
humiliating and detrimental repercussion of 400 years of colonial enslavement
and more contemporary bunk financial aid. I don’t expect you to understand,
it’s nearly impossible for you to comprehend.
After all, you are completely wasted and as a result your brain is only
able to function at a fraction of its normal rate.
It’s not your fault, you didn’t write this whole history
fiasco and you certainly aren’t responsible for the cultural shit-storm left
behind by a horrific civil war that followed an extensive period of
colonization which lasted 400 years too long.
But unfortunately you and I are here now, the by-products of choices
that we and our ancestors made long ago, and we have to play the hands that
we’ve been dealt. Yours is certainly
much tougher than mine, I’ll give you that.
You’re an unemployed and living in a third world country. You have no money, a sick family, and an
unrecognized problem with alcohol. The
struggles you face that result from just those few conditions far outweigh the
struggles I’m currently faced with: trying to learn a new language, adapt to a
new culture, and get over the shock of not having unrestricted access to
Chipotle. As I said, my hand is
different than yours.
To say I’ve been fortunate would be an understatement. If you could see the life I left behind in
Bethesda, you’d probably defecate in your pants out of shear shock that I left
such a paradisiac lifestyle. Still, I’m
not here to give you money, and I’m sorry if that makes me seem like an
asshole. I refuse to conform to the expectation that you and many others have
for white men being cash cows, and therefore you will have to struggle with me
as I work to adjust this seemingly engrained perception of the white man. I’m a volunteer, and just because I’m white,
it does not mean that I have money.
Again, I’m sorry for your struggles and hope that once you
are sober, maybe we can be friends.
Until then,
Will
No comments:
Post a Comment