Feb. 22, 2022.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine. This issue does not affect me personally. I have no family or friends there, I have never visited and I can’t say I know anything substantial about its people or culture — it is a world away from my understanding.
Feb. 24, 2022.
Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill — which limits educators from freely discussing gender and sexual orientation issues in the classroom — passes. This does affect me. I am bisexual and many of my friends are LGBTQ, and though I’m not a U.S. citizen, this law sets an alarming precedent for other nations to follow and directly impacts people I love.
But regardless of personal attachment, these issues both drive me to the same feeling:
Desperation.
Both elicit the same anger in me, and make me feel an intense helplessness as millions of people’s lives hang in the balance.
I know I’m not alone in feeling this way.
Whether you are directly hurting right now, or carry a heavy heart from the searing images you see on your TV screen, these issues are real. We must act against them.
It doesn’t matter whose shoes you’re in.
Whether you’re from Ukraine or the U.S., gay or straight, cisgendered or transgendered — it should never matter.
Too often people only care about the causes that impact them directly. The ones that keep them up at night with worry. Carving fear into their families’ eyes and lacerating their friends’ speech into stutters and sobs.
But this mentality of solely fighting for issues that revolve around you and your loved ones is closed-minded. A one-point perspective takes root, no matter how well-intentioned you are.
It creates a narrowness — though good-hearted — that can end up as harmful as the evil it protests against.
We have to start caring about things that don’t affect us personally.
It’s OK to need reminders, especially when things feel hopeless.
We also can’t make an enemy of those associated with the source of injustice.
Russians are not responsible for this war, their government is.
Floridians are not responsible for this bill, their state government is.
We can all be responsible for taking the time to understand the predicament that others find themselves in, and what we can do to help them.
We must start caring about things that don’t personally affect us.
Sophie McNally is an assistant sports editor and can be reached at sophie.mcnally@ubspectrum.com
Sophie McNally is an assistant sports editor at The Spectrum. She is a history major studying abroad for a year from Newcastle University in the UK. In her spare time, she can be found blasting The 1975 or Taylor Swift and rowing on a random river at 5 a.m.
