I seldom get messages begging for funds. I suppose that Blind Democracy
sounds like a good place to beg for money. The message reminded me of when I
traveled with a group from the Ethical Humanist Society and Adelphi School
of Social Work in 1986 to Kenya. All sorts of people were constantly asking
us, as individuals, for money, for aid to travel to the US or to sends them
specific items when we returned home. People had absolutely no embarrassment
about doing this. I remember how uncomfortable I felt because it was clear
that they saw us as wealthy people who owed them whatever they requested
because of who we were in relation to them. It must have been even more
uncomfortable for the African Americans in our group, who had told us that
this trip would be an opportunity for them to form a relationship with the
land of their ancestors. But the Kenyans did not see them as kin. They saw
them as rich American tourists.
Miriam