a Little Light

Recently, I had an opportunity to do a small community service project with the Washington State University Hawaii Club. The purpose of the event was to raise money and awareness for the Christmas Wish Program of Hawaii
by holding signs and collecting donations via fishnets while standing on the side of the road. The organization itself is relatively small, so despite raising a relatively low per-an-hour-rate of contributions and helping for a few hours, I believe that we made a notable difference for the organization, its staff and eventually, the children.

However, I’m not writing to advertise for the non-profit or the Hawaii Club of WSU. Rather, I wish to express and expand upon a disturbing observation I made while participating in the project. It can be summarized like this: the poor give, and the rich do not.

The ones who took the initiative to give were the ones driving old, beat up cars from a decade or two ago with humbles brands like Toyota, Honda and GMC. The nice cars like Lexus and Acura with middle aged couple drivers almost never gave, with one caveat: they would give only when they saw someone else giving first – but they would only consistently give around a dollar. On the other hand, the less fortunate by appearance gave freely. A couple dollars, five dollars, even twelve or twenty after pooling together what everyone else in the car had.

This is sad on many levels. The wealthy are the ones who have the power and ability to effectively make an impact and difference in this world, but oftentimes they do not. Since I originate from the lower-middle class, it is difficult for me to understand the mindset of the affluent, but I can speculate since I am better off than others in this world. And sadly, I believe the rich hoard because they are greedy and seek only to increase their wealth, status and influence. On the other hand, the poor give because they understand the futility of the pursuit of money and relate more to the struggles of the less fortunate. The rich and elite are only interested in one thing: remaining rich and elite; helping the lower class hurts this objective, so they do not donate in a method which does not benefit them. That’s why they’ll only give when there’s something in it for them: a receipt so they can write it off on their taxes or if an audience is watching so they’ll gain the admiration of others.

I could end here, but I want to expand this idea to the controversial realm of politics. Please stop reading at this point if you’re uncomfortable with slightly liberal views.

I hate the majority of Republicans. I really do. In case you were wondering, the Republican Party is controlled by the wealthiest and most greedy people of this country. Granted, they are in the minority, so they created an alter-ego and presented an image of socially conservative, traditionally Christian views to lure in a far larger portion of the country into their party. But make no mistake; the Republicans do not have the interests of the middle and lower class in mind as they make their policy decisions.

The United States remains one of the only industrialized nations in the world without national healthcare. Why? Because the rich republicans do not want to foot the bill for the poor as they have the resources to provide for their family and they make a large amount of money from health insurance companies. Furthermore, they stunt technological advancement and overall economic improvement with their insistence on maintaining the status quo. They killed the electric car over a decade ago as California moved towards them because it threatened oil companies. They orchestrate senseless and unnecessary wars which cost the lives of friends and family from people like you and me while they sit pretty with their loved ones in gated communities for personal monetary gain.

I could go on, but it would likely be meaningless as you likely have your opinions set in one direction or are entirely apathetic toward the whole discussion.

Although we cannot control the generosity levels of others, we can assist in dictating the generosity level of the government by opening the political discussion and ignoring society’s taboo on the subject while educating others on the facts of each party. Once the facts are laid out, it would be unfathomable for any family under the income threshold of about $250k and individual under around $100k to support the GOP since the Democratic Party actually seeks to assist and help those under these income brackets through tax cuts and federal assistance programs while increasing the taxes for those above these levels.

Finally, we can also control our own actions. While success is achieved through hard work and dedication, there is no denying that the circumstances we are born into play a huge role in determining the ease for us to achieve a certain level of success. Therefore, by helping those less fortunate than us, we provide them an opportunity to fend for themselves and to contribute in our society; something nearly individual would love to do, but many poor regrettably never get the chance to do so. By helping them, you inevitably and inexpiably oftentimes end up helping yourself.