Maybe children are adults, and adults are children. At least that is how it feels like nowadays. President Obama recently posted a video of a 6-year-old boy from New York. He wrote Obama a letter, asking if he could adopt a little boy from Syria. Not just any little boy, but the little boy from the heartbreaking images sitting in an ambulance after a bomb attack in Aleppo. This little boys name is Omran, and Alex wants to be Omran's brother. Alex is a human being, and he sees Omran as a little boy, a little human being he can "share his bike with". "We will give him a family and he will be our brother." Why are we, adults, so scared of Omran? Why does the idea of Syrian refugees freak us out? Why do we compare Syrian children to skittles? (Referencing Donald Trump Jr.'s Tweet). Why are we so scared that out of 300 skittles, 3 will be sour? So what? Here on American soil, we have crimes committed every day by American citizens. Just the other day, 13 innocent people were shot dead in the city of Philadelphia. "UNODC regularly updates statistical series on crime, criminal justice, drug trafficking and prices, drug production, and drug use." Why are we singling out the refugees as criminals? It's not because they are refugees that there might be those "three sour skittles." It's because they're human beings. Criminality is human nature. Bad people exist, news flash, in EVERY race, color, religion and gender.
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"Well we already have enough crime in America, we don't need more."
Sure, we don't need more. But larger than the crimes in America, is a humanitarian crisis occurring on the other side of the world, to OUR brothers and sisters, and we choose to drink beer and say "to hell with Muslims and to hell with refugees, this is AMERICA!" Before I am American, I am a human being. We all are. We are all in this confusing, cruel, beautiful, scary world together. And last time I checked, nobody knows why the world truly exists. So why is it that instead of sticking together and supporting one another, are we tearing each other down? Ignoring each other's pain and tears? Refusing to help?
We've learned as we've grown older and more educated, the emotion of fear and we allow it to control our every decision and our every move. The Syrian refugees are my family. They are my brothers and sisters; my mothers and fathers. Let's all be a little more like Alex. "A young child who has not learned to be cynical or suspicious or fearful of other people because of where they come from, how they look or how they pray." Well said, President Obama. I'm not one to tell people to change their opinions (not that it will do much anyways). But I do feel strongly about a very real and very serious humanitarian crisis that we are living through today, ignoring the very criticality of it, and allowing our selfishness and fear get in the way of our natural born humanity. We must open our hearts and doors to refugees. We are all brothers and sisters in this world. It is my duty, our duty, as Americans and members of the human race to open our minds, hearts and borders to these poor refugee children and their families. I will gladly suffer whatever the consequence of "three sour skittles" may be, in order to save 297 skittles from being wasted. To ease millions of refugees pain, to stop the GENOCIDE of Muslim families and their children.
