(NNPA)—President Obama says he is going to take ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) out. I wonder how many of us have been to that part of the world. I haven’t and I wonder if our visions would help us understand what is going on there.
If I had a gazillion dollars — or maybe just Koch bothers money — I’d send every student I knew, especially African-American students, out of the country. While I’d most enjoy sending them to Africa or the diaspora, anyplace would work. The point would be for them to get out of their immediate environment, out of their privilege. By doing so, they might gain better insight into why so many in other countries have antipathy toward us.
This, of course, does not account for President Obama’s plea that the world rally around the United States to stop ISIS. Global awareness, however, would go a long way toward our understand ding of the way things work around the world. Just under a quarter of a million students (less than 1 percent of our total) study abroad, most of them White and most of them headed to Europe. Had more of them gone to the African diaspora or to parts of Latin America, more might understand the lives that so many lead, and the privilege we enjoy in the world context. We should not, of course, apologize for our gifts, we should simply be aware of them.
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