To my fellow Americans,

We should be apologizing.

Apologizing that we have let ourselves become more concerned with political correctness, than in figuring out how to stop the deaths of over 3 million every year to preventable diseases.

That we are more concerned with making the present pay for the sins of the past, and ignore that 36 million people of every race, color, and creed, are forced into slavery today, which is more than ever before.

That we believe that a campus of thousands of fellow peers, professors, and staff is somehow a hostile environment because there is free speech. They forget that 42,500 people are forced to flee for their lives leave a real hostile environment.

That social justice is now forcing everyone to conform to our beliefs, when in 2013, 17,891 people were killed because religious and ideological radicals want to violently force their beliefs on the world.

That going to college is not enough of a privilege in itself, so we leave our education in protest to go on hunger strikes, when 3.1 million children die every year from a lack of food.

That we call for a roll back on freedom, when three million girls are forced to have female genital mutilation and are stripped of their basic human rights.

The American university campuses are concerned with first world problems. We don’t protest the pharmaceutical companies that could provide the necessary drugs to stop the spread of seven preventable diseases. The governments that strip women of rights.

A large portion of our country is upset that racists have opened their mouths. Yet, racists and terrorists across the world open up gun fire, killing tens of thousands.

Now world, we all have to take a stand for all those issues. Some issues are highly political and solutions can be hard to grasp. But, since we are protesting, we ought should be protesting for something more. Something bigger. Something that will save lives.

I bet we can all agree that the US can better herself, but I also think we know we have it pretty good. The mass majority of us go to bed full, go to bed with rights, and don’t have to worry about where we will live tomorrow. But, recently, we haven’t been protesting on the behalf of the minority in the US that don’t have those rights.

So, we need to apologize to the part of the world that has faced a recent terrorist attack, that is fleeing their homeland, dying when they could be saved, don’t know where their next meal will come from, and are facing slavery and persecution. We should apologize that we have the resources to do something, but are wasting them. That we could be solving real problems, not creating fake ones in our backyard.

I, personally, ought to apologize. For far too often, I find myself complaining about some specter of a problem when across the world or down the street someone is dealing with a very real and present danger to their lives, not just their comfort.

My fellow Americans, we need to take charge of our freedom and understand that humanity means moving outside of what confronts us on our way to school and work, to see what confronts the millions of hungry and hurting.

Why? Because that is what being human is fundamentally about. Finding humanity for us all. We are privileged. Privileged for what we have and for the horrors we cannot see. But we need to understand what happens outside of our city streets, to see what unfolds outside of our comfort zone. Then we can see what actually needs to be done.

And hopefully, we will start doing something about it.

I pray that each of us will take a moment to reflect on all we have.

We all have finite resources. Our time, our money, our words are limited. Please, consider how you want to spend what you have. What issues truly matter? What lives could you save by volunteering, donating, or spreading the word? Is every cause worth the same amount of effort?

We must remember the tired, the weary, the poor, and the threatened. It our responsibility to be good stewards of what we have to give.

Feeling sorry for what is happing around the world won’t stop the death, pain, and sorrow.

We, America, need to apologize for not recognizing this, and then go out and fix it.

Because we can do better.

Your Fellow American