May 13, 2012 Second post.

Hello everyone.

I know that it is unusual for me to post two updates in one day, but I have something to say.

As a special treat for myself for graduating, I decided I would take myself out to a movie that I've been wanting to see for some time...

The Hunger Games.

If you haven't seen it yet, and want to, I implore you to stop reading now. I'm going to talk about it, and some things I noticed that.. Well.. That are part of our lives today. I don't really give anything away, but I just want to be safe and not ruin things for you.

I was completely prepared to see the movie, so I thought. It was a good movie, to be sure, but I was nowhere near where I thought I was. I read the books. I watched the previews. I thought I would enjoy it.. and I did, to a point.

Of course the book and movie are quite different. And that's part of my point.


We are having an effect. One of the previews before the movie was called Step Up Revolution. It's in that series of dance movies, but this one is quite a bit different than the others. The others are all about proving yourself to people who say you can't do something, and this one is too. But those were about school principals, or parents who don't agree with you. This one is about using dance as protest, to fight back against a greedy landmonger threatening people from their homes and businesses. Fitting.


As I watched The Hunger Games, I felt an underlying dread begin to wash over me. It's different when you read something. You can put yourself or anyone else as the characters in the book, and it usually will deeply affect you. This movie did exactly that.

It showed children fighting for their lives, forced by their government to do so in order to save their families. It's not the same... right?

Wrong. We are told, time and time again, that there is not enough for us. That we must fight daily to become better to survive. We must work every day, some to death, to provide for our families what there is actually ample enough for all to survive. We watch as people who cannot do become trampled under those who can, forced to live in worlds of violence and hate, simply because they are different from the elite. We are NOT equal in this country, and BY WHATEVER GOD THERE IS, I WILL NOT STOP FIGHTING THIS.

I watched this movie with horror in my heart, realizing that everyday, even in this country, there are children that scavenge for food while the healthy and wealthy toss tons in the garbage. The lucky ones. We can eat. We can dress. We can survive easily. I am lucky enough to be one of these. I have clothes. They may not be the best, but I am dressed. I can eat. It may not be four course meals, but I have enough. I have shelter. I am safe. I am free from the violence found in back alleys and bad neighborhoods.

Yet I am afraid. Why? Because I am TOLD TO BE. As are you. We are afraid of those who are different from us because IT IS WHAT WE ARE TAUGHT. By family, peers, instructors, history. BY OTHER HUMANS. We are taught to fear. We are coached, chided, pushed, and BRAINWASHED into being afraid of the less fortunate, even though the people who are teaching us to see things that way are the very groups that caused that misfortune to begin with.

Enough is enough.

It is more than time to stand up. It is more than time to fight back. Persecution of others, no matter how slight, no matter how ingrained, no matter how positively perceived, or indifferent, must be stopped. We cannot do this to our fellow human beings.

All tears are salty. All blood is red. Why do we sit back and watch those lucky few take advantage of those who have nothing.


Will you stand with me? Will you say no more? Will you speak up? Will you fight back?

Who are you?