Last week, the nation watched as Tomi Lahren (a popular talk show host on The Blaze network) ridiculed San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick for sitting during the National Anthem. Lahren's fan base reveled in her verbal "take down" of this young, black male and, basically, missed the point of his personal protest entirely. Alas, I don't want to discuss Kaepernick's politics (which were mostly misinterpreted by Fox News, The Blaze, and other conservative networks), but I do want to discuss this: why doesn't America get this angry about things that actually matter? To emphasize my point, here are a list of things Lahren and her fans could've gotten angry about, that are actually abhorrent.
1.) One out of Three People on Earth are Food Insecure. Literally.
Lahren will take her precious programming time to roast Kaepernick for exercising his right to protest the senseless killing of POC in this nation, yet she won't take a moment to mention this glaring problem in society at large. Did you know, according to the Sociologist Dr. Stanley Eitzen in his educational text Social Problems, that one out of three people in this world don't know where their next meal is coming from? Literally, one-third of us (about 2.3 billion people) do not know how, nor when, we are going to eat our next meal. Ironically, if more people ate a vegetarian diet and less food waste occurred in industrialized nations (like the United States, for example) the earth could sustain a food supply that could meet the basic nutritional needs of TEN BILLION people? That is three billion more people than currently live on earth, guys. We could feed every single person on the face of this planet and have a ridiculous amount left over to store, but we don't. Why don't we? Because food is not equally distributed around the globe. Americans in particular waste about twenty pounds of food per person, per month (Source: UNICEF). That is ridiculous.
2.) America has Sold Roughly One Hundred BILLION Dollars Worth of Weapons to Foreign Countries Since the End of the Cold War.
Dr. Eitzen also points out in his Social Problems text that the United States has raised a ridiculous amount of capital by selling weapons to foreign military regimes. Where does this capital go? Who knows. Most likely to America's ridiculously large military budget, which about 54% of all federal discretionary spending, or, roughly 598.5 BILLION DOLLARS (Source: The National Priorities Project). Our government can make sure our military machine is stocked full of weapons it most likely won't use, but cannot feed our nations poor and hungry. Why aren't we angry about this, again?
3.) American CEOs make 373 Times More than Their Lowest Paid Workers.
This speaks for itself, honestly. The inequality gap increases by the year, and we don't do anything about it (Source: CNBC). Hey, America, are you angry yet? Or are we still mad at the singular, young, black man who won't stand for the National Anthem?
If this list hasn't convinced you, I could go on for much longer. Trust me. I'll spare you the politics, though, and let you mull on these figures and statistics for yourself. But, I'll leave you with this: it might be time to get your priorities in check, America.
